


Of arcane energy and missing hearts

by OhWowAltMal



Series: Sweet lies and dark magiks [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodyswap, Brief mentions of sazed, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Mentions, Established Relationship, Kidnapping, Like blink and youll miss em, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, Necromancy, Non-Explicit Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rituals, Taako struggles, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 20:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhWowAltMal/pseuds/OhWowAltMal
Summary: In which Taako gets messed up by some very bad, very nasty necromancers, but nobody really realizes, and he gets the horrifying implication that the people he loves don't really know him as well as he thought they did.Taakos not in his body anymore. You'd think people would notice.( they do )





	1. New Armos

Even two years after the events of Story and Song, the letters still kept pouring in. 

Most of them, and the ones Taako read the most of – when he could be bothered to – were ‘thank you’s. Sometimes there was the odd request for help, be it rebuilding, reuniting with somebody, the odd question about necromancy that Kravtiz would swiftly take care of. He got a surprising amount of wedding invitations. Some tabloids, newspapers wanting interviews, and who could blame them? He was Taako, you know,  _from_ _TV_ , savior of the planar systems and greatest transmutation wizard across all realities. He liked getting the letters – they reminded him of some of the good that they had done, and he liked sitting on his couch with a mug of something hot and letting the words wash over him like a comforting bath. 

Sometimes, he got angry letters. That was never a good day.  

Letters of rage from people who had been lost to their relics. People who lost wives, husbands, parents, children. He read every single one of them, and replied to none - couldn’t bring himself to. What do you say to the people you took  _everything_ from? Kravitz would hold him as he cried, whispering meaningless sentiments that always made him feel better, fill that hollow inside of his chest.  

So, when the letter from the settlement of New Armos arrives, he expects the worst. Armos rolls on his tongue, around his head, a never-ending taunt of  _this is what you did_. The city turned to peppermint; turned by his relic, turned by his hand, seven hundred and fourteen people haunting his dreams and staring at him with white, judgmental eyes burning from black horror bodies all too reminiscent of The Hunger. He doesn’t want to read it. It shakes, in his hands, gold seal from a city sigil he doesn’t recognize but its name emblazoned clear in red ink across the top.  

Eventually, he tears it open. He expects heated words. Spat curses. Tales of death and hardship and hatred, and it is nothing like he expects. 

 

 _Dear_ _Taako_ _Taaco_ _,_ _savior_ _of the world, one of the_ _S_ _even_ _B_ _irds,_  

 _The city of New_ _Armos_ _would like to cordially invite you to the opening of the_ _Armos_ _memorial and following services. The_ _Armos_ _memorial stands upon the ruins of Old_ _Armos_ _, destroyed by one of the Grand Relics during the Great Wars, and the_ _High Council_ _believe it only fitting to have you oversee the reveal of the memorial as well as be_ _ar witness to the_ _pre_ _ceding speeches and honors._  

 _The high council understands the emotional turmoil that must have befitted you and the other Seven Birds and wishes to convey their greatest sympathies in this trying time. Under no circumstances are you – or any of your compatriots - under any pressure to make any kind of speech, announcement, or honorable tribute, or to even attend this gathering at all. The high council of New_ _Armos_ _only saw it fit to extend this invitation to you, and whomever you bring with if you attend, and to convey that the people of_ _Armos_ _hold no bad will against you or any of the other Seven birds in light of their actions. You are welcome in our city._  

 _Warmest gratitude,_  

 _The high council of New_ _Armos_ _._  

 

He packs the next day. 

 

 

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you, love?” Kravitz watches as he gets his final things together and tosses his braid over his shoulder. “Or at the very least portal you there?” 

So worried, even with just a little trip like this. Taako wondered sometimes how Kravitz could have ever fallen in love with somebody like him – somebody so hard, gnarled inside, who took weeks of gentle words and endless,  _boundless_ love to even begin to unfurl and unbind his walls. He still doesn’t know, if he’s honest,  _how_ he does; but he’s secure in knowing that he does. That Kravitz loves him, unconditionally, unfathomably.  

It’s a weird sensation, knowing that you're loved by somebody else, and not being scared. Feeling secure. It had taken them months – who was he kidding,  _years_ – to get to this level of comfort and safety in their relationship, and even then, they still had their bad days; when  Taakos  memory plays up and he lashes out in anger about something he can't even think of, when Kravitz forgets about the differences in time between planes and doesn’t come home for a week, but even then,  _especially_ then, they always stumble their way back to each other with reaffirmations of love and quiet apologies. 

Taako loves him. He doesn’t say it enough, rarely says it back, but Kravitz knows.  

 So he rolls his eyes and presses a lingering kiss to his cheek, feeling his hands flit over his hips before grounding themselves solid in an embrace. “Nah, I'll be fine, ‘s only a few days. I needed some Taako Time, anyway, get some real self-reflecting going on, and not the kind I always get you to help with.” He wiggles his eyebrows and it draws a laugh out from Kravitz. “You’ll feed the cats while I'm gone, yeah?” 

“Of course. Stay safe. Bring me back something exciting?” He feels cool lips pressed to his forehead and grins, leaning upwards and tilting his head to catch their trajectory and kisses him back properly. 

“What, getting me back’s not exciting enough? Rude boy.” He teases. Kravitz just rolls his eyes. 

“I’d prefer you weren't the gift but rather the bearer of such.”  

“Yeah, I’ll bet you want to see me bare-er, you perv.” 

“Just leave already, if you're just going to sit here and insult me.” Kravitz is laughing as he gently shoves him out the door, handing him his far too large, definitely transmuted pink luggage and watching him step back with eyes far too soft for the literal embodiment of death. “I love you.” 

The words choke in his throat unfairly and he gives a small wave, hops down the steps of their porch –  _their_ porch, of  _their_ house, the one  _they_ live in, a thought Taako can never fully wrap his head around – and blows him a kiss. “Right back at cha, hot stuff.” 

He summons Garyl, who complains about the weight of the luggage right until he bribes him with some spectral oats, and they're on their way to Armos. 

 

Taako forgot what being alone felt like. 

He has two different lifetimes constantly colliding in his brain; one, raised alone on the streets, traveling from caravan to caravan cooking and scraping his way through living until finally coming up on his own. The other, growing up traveling from caravan cooking and scraping his way through living – but with Lup. Lup, who always watched his back; Lup, who never left him alone; Lup, who was the driving force behind their survival and Lup; an extension of his very heart.  

Taako has a decade of loneliness corroding his soul that never existed in the first place. 

After the events of Phandalin he was never really alone, not really, and he finds it hard to think of times when he was even after Sizzle It Up began. First, Sazed, his fans, and then, more merchant groups, and then, Magnus and Merle. After those two dorks people poured into his life thick and fast, faster than he could have ever comprehended, and yeah, it was a tad overwhelming sometimes. Sometimes names blurred into names and faces to faces and he would have trouble remembering who was who, something that felt absentmindedly familiar, but-but Magnus, but Merle, they always stuck around. They were always there. Even when he pushed them away, even with how closed off he was, they were always there. 

It takes a long time for Taako to open up. They had a year. 

They had a  _hundred_ years. 

So, finding himself for the first time ever, if you could call it that, finding himself for the first time ever alone felt both terrifying and liberating. Like he was coming back to a home that had never really been his. Things felt familiar but, at the same time, foreign; he books a double room at the first inn he stays at and sleeps in only one. He always turns to ask the opinion of nobody whenever he sees something flashy or sparkly in a store. He’s too confident, too cocky basking in the protection of people who weren't there. It only takes three days to get to Armos but the days would stretch on forever as he drowned in a silence that felt far, far too wrong.  

When he finally arrives in Armos, late the evening before the Memorial Gala and luggage heavy and tired on his back, Taako needs a drink. 

More than that. He needs noise. He needs the familiar comforts of a tavern because, at least, that’s set-in-stone. A bustling tavern alone at night was something he was comfortable in even in both timelines. So, he sets his bag down, shoots a quick call to Kravitz – who tells him he loves him, and he coughs out a  _me too_  – and finds himself in the first tavern that he can find. 

It’s a shady place. Cheap beer that tastes like piss. Bands of bad merchants missing limbs clustering up all of the tables with women dangling across their laps like lapdogs. The bard keeps playing the same fuckin’ song over again, calling it  _Wonderwall_ or some dumb shit like that. But its familiar. Loud. Full of people and warmth and energy and exactly what he needs. 

He’s sitting at the bar, nursing an empty cup when another slides into his view. He's about to protest that he didn't pay for this when the man next to him, a Tiefling with dark ram's horns curling behind his hair, smiles. 

“Sorry. You just looked like a guy who needed a drink.” 

He eyes it suspiciously before shrugging. “You're right about that compadre. Don’t you get any funny ideas, though, my boyfriend could kick your ass into the astral plane.” The thought makes him smile. 

Funnily enough, the Tiefling just laughs, pointed teeth glinting of wealth enough to stay clean. “No, I wasn’t - you’re Taako, right? One of the Seven Birds?” 

Oh. A fan. “Hell yeah I am, lap it up buddy, not many people are lucky enough to get some one-on-one Taako Time. Kind of trying to lay low, you get the drift? You want an autograph or something?” 

He shook his head, clinking their glasses together. “Nah. Just figured I’d thank the guy who saved our world personally with a drink. Least I could do.” 

Taako took a moment, drinking in the man sitting beside him. Tall. Full blooded Tiefling, with dark blue-hued skin and those ram horns well-polished and hidden beneath a thick bush of curly black hair. Earrings and rings, and clothes clean enough that he probably didn’t belong in this bar. Hot, but not in the way Kravitz was hot. Nothing like Kravitz. All of the confidence and cockiness of the demeanor but none of the muscle to back it up. 

He was on his second drink and was missing Kravitz. Why hadn't he invited him along? 

“So, are you here for the Armos memorial?” The Tiefling asks, and Taako is surprised he's still interested in talking. Surprised, actually, that finding out he was Taako – you know,  _from TV_  - didn’t get the reaction he got with practically everybody else. 

This dude was weird. Maybe Angus was starting to wear off a little on him, but he definitely didn’t belong here, and he definitely didn’t care about who Taako was. So, yeah, maybe he decided to do a little investigating. Screw it. He was bored, and he was tired, and he wanted to talk to somebody  _normal_. 

He actually just wanted to talk to Kravitz. But his stone of farspeech was in his room, and he still had half a drink to get through, so this guy would do, he guessed. At least until his drink was finished. 

“Yeah. Figured I'd stop by and see it off, yknow? Least I could do for fucking up that shit.” He took a gulp of said drink and the Tiefling looked to him in silent sympathy. “What ‘bout you, Kemosabe? You’re an out of towner too, or at the least, waaay out of your depth in this ole shit-house of a bar,” the bartender nearby gave a protesting ‘hey!’ but Taako ignored him, “so unless you're some creepy fuckin stalker of mine who's trying to get me to bless your baby, or propose to your wife, or something, I don’t see what kinda reason you got to be hangin’ here and tryin’ to get tight with me.” 

The Tiefling seemed taken aback, blinking at him with wide eyes before quickly ordering them another two drinks and finally delving into a sheepish grin. “Well, alright. You got me. I heard you were coming here and... _maybe_ did a little bit of stalking? Just a tad. A smidge. But not for anything nefarious, I swear. Plus, drinks! On me.” And he gestured to the two new glasses that slid over from the bar.  

Taako was two drinks deep and the temptation of another one was practically irresistible. Plus, the offer of hot goss and a pleasant conversation. “Alright, you got my attention. Spill.” 

It turns out the Tiefling had used to live in Old Armos, before everything had turned to peppermint sugary goodness. Badness. He’d been out on a business trip a few days before the event happened, and had come back to find his city turned to candy and all of its inhabitants – his family, his brother, even – dead. 

Guy didn’t even harbor any bad blood. “He was kind of a dick anyway.” He shrugged, and continued on, and Taako thought that maybe the new people of Armos didn’t have any beef with him. It was a startling thing to think about.  

Of course, It got weirder, because  _of course it did._  He had been in Phandalin a week before Taako and his crew got it burnt to glass by Flamo Dwarfotron 2000 – trying to track down a lead on what had happened to his city just months ago, hed luckily left on a lead just a few days before he would have been turned to ash. And then, he found himself in Wonderland – lucky enough to only go through an hour-long trial before it was demolished around him as Taako and the others captured the Animus Bell.  

“So,” and he raised his glass as he finished off his story, “I suppose you can't really blame me for wanting to buy drinks for the guy who saved my ass on multiple occasions.”  

It was... almost unbelievable, if he was honest. But in his line of work, and as the goddamn emissary of Istus, Goddess of fate, he had learnt to realize that the unbelievable shit wasn’t always impossible. Sometimes people really did just happen to be at the wrong places at the wrong times. Knowing her, she was probably laughing as they spoke, weaving in another completed thread into the tapestry of time. 

Taako raised his fifth half-empty glass in a wavering hand and clinked them together. “What’d you say your name was, my dude?” 

The Tiefling flashed him a fang-filled smile. “Damian.” He said. 

He knew something was wrong around the seventh drink. 

 

“Dddddamiann.” He slurred, slumped against the bar and trying to hold his head up straight. “D-boy. Dammy. I th- I thhhhhhink I've been roofied. Wazit – did you roooooooofie me?” 

His newfound friend shot him a look of panicked concern and shoved his hands under his armpits to keep him straight. He had been focused on trying to figure out what the lyrics to this bardic tune was, and hadn't even noticed when Taako spilt his drink all over himself and thunked his head against the solid wood. “What? No! Why would I –  _fuck_ , Taako, come on, Gods, let's get you out of here.” He helped him stand, and Taako slumped against his body, feeling the ground sway beneath his feet and his vision tinted black around the edges. 

“I Kn-I know, magic, Dammmian, you do-don’t wanna fuck with me.” 

As Damian held him tight and carried him towards the door of the bar, chucking sheepish grins and waves out to everyone like pan pamphlets, he leaned in close and murmured his next words close to Taakos ear. “The guy behind you kept staring at you. I didn’t think it was anything I – I'm sorry, I should have done something -” 

Oh, yeah, Scarface jones, the guy with the shitty mullet and weird mustache. He thought the guy had been giving him weird looks but had chalked it up to the fact that hey, probably not many elves with good fashion taste and drop-dead 10/10 looks walked through the door of that pisshole.  

“Iss fine, iss –is fine, jjus gimmie home, yeah?” He stumbled with him back into the direction of the inn, heeled boots catching on the cobblestones of the pathway. “I wannnnnnna- I wanna call Kravvy. I wanna. I neeeeeeeed to - I need to tell him I love him, cos ido, Damian, I do, I lot -” he pressed his face to Damians shoulder and he smelt like pinewood and copper, a smell that was both comforting and sent a shiver down his spine that he couldn’t recognize in this drug induced haze. 

Damian shot him a small, comforting smile. “Kravvy? Is he your boyfriend? The one who could beat me up?” 

Taakos bleary, proud grin widened, and he snickered. “Yyeah. Yeah he-  _hic_ – yeah hes great. He cou-he could kick yyyour ass into like, another planar system, or something, yknow. Badass.” 

His friend hummed a noise of acknowledgment and helped them turn a corner. “I’d like to meet him.” 

“Whhaa?” The question barely came out as a question, more a mumbled fumble of noises made by weary and numb lips. Damian just shrugged. 

“Never met a Reaper before.” 

The alarm bells going off in his brain were muffled by layers upon layers of booze and drugs, and he tried to focus on him with bleary eyes, frown slipping in and out of place. “I nevver - I never tttttttold you ab-bout that.” 

The Tiefling looked to him concerned, now, grip on his hips sliding tighter. “What - yes, Taako, you did. You told me everything.” 

Did he? 

Was his – was his memory fucking up again? Or was this the drugs and the alcohol giving him blank slates in his memory? He stumbled, not paying attention to where he was going and his mind not focusing, and he pitched forward onto cold stone as his heel caught itself in a divot. His arms broke most of the fall but even then, he felt nothing, only the cold seeping sensation as the puddle he fell into soaked into his clothes and hair. Taako rolled onto his back and muttered something to Damian, arms outstretched. He needed help up. 

Help never came.  

Sounds were muffled, now, as he could feel his consciousness starting to slip, his vision a solid comforting black as he could hear the sounds of conversation from outside of his hazed veil. He felt the impact of something hitting the ground beside him, and more conversation, before finally slipping into blissful oblivion.  

 

 

Taako was used to hangovers.  

He was used to the alarming thickness of his tongue, the pounding headache and oversensitivity to lights, his clothes feeling like sandpaper on his skin and his stomach broiling like he’d eaten a basketful of jalapenos. Takao had gotten plastered enough times, both with Lup and alone, to recognize and be used to a killer hangover.  

He wasn’t, however, used to the feeling of cold metal encircling his wrists, nor to waking up with cold stone against his back and a light humming filling the air. 

Taako blinked open his eyes no matter how much his head protested and winced, vision adjusting to non-bleary functionality and skittering away from the sources of light that were attached to the walls. He was sitting on the floor of a cell, which explained the stone, and the metal bars that covered his only exit to his right. Outside of the bars was a large, expansive room, with familiar runes painted on the wall and candles lighting papers scattered around on what looked like an impressive wooden desk. His gaze flickered to his side as he heard shuffling, and he was surprised at what he saw; Damian, the friendly Tiefling, chained just like he was but unconscious against the wall with a bleeding gash just hidden beneath his curls.  

Well, fuck. He wasn’t even kidnapped by anybody he knew. 

They were alone, from what he could see, and despite the fact he figured as much Taako tried to pop open the locks on their chains. Nothing, and with a higher perception roll he could see the anti-magic wards etched into the metal. Because, of fucking course they have anti-magic runes, they're not  _dumbasses_.  

Of course Taako had to be taken hostage by  _smart_ necromancers. Why couldn’t he have gotten the dumb kind? The ones who don't even think about anti-dead wards? 

Because oh, yeah, two of his closest family members were litches and the love of his life hunted necromancy for a living. 

He definitely knew a necromancer's lair when he was trapped in one. 

Now he  _really_ wished he had invited Kravitz along. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pounded out this chapter in like an hour the second i thought of this AU and absolutely cannot WAIT to keep on with this. Im thinking maybe 5 chapters? if i can draw it out that long? Hopefully. Again im not one for having a regular posting schedule but i promise to update as much as i can!


	2. Jailbreak?

Tieflings must have some hardy noggin’ strength, because Damian wakes up just five minutes after Taako comes to his senses. 

He catches the head lolling, the man wincing in the light and reaching up to touch the wound on his head, confused at the chains, and he shuffles over. “D-dog!” He hisses in a hushed whisper, and the Tiefling blinks at him, eyes widening after a second of realization.  

“Taako? Wh- what's going on? What happened?” His voice slurred at the edges but he seemed coherent, and Taako urged him to lower his voice. 

“I dunno, Dammy, but we’re smack-dab in the middle of a necromancer's chill zone and things ain't lookin too good.” He eyed out the bars but they were still alone. “Scarface Joe prolly roofied me then knocked your lights out. Didn’t take him for the smart kind, though, so...hired muscle? The Magnus?” 

Damian worried his lip and wrung his hands together, looking down at the cuffs and flexing for a second before huffing. “Anti-magic wards?” 

“Anti-magic wards.” he confirmed. Damian sighed. 

“Fuck. We got the _smart_ ones, huh?” 

Taako leant against the stone cell wall with a shrug, peering out the bars again and trying to examine the runes and spell components he could see. The runes were familiar, but only just, ones he recognized slightly from when Lup and Barry turned themselves into Litches or from one of their dumbass death books. He could see, now that he focused, two chairs had been set up, with a worrying number of straps loose and untied at the joints, facing back to back and both sitting in the middle of a silver-painted symbol. Candles were mostly around for light, and the few spell components that he could see – aside from a fairly sizable pile of gold – he couldn’t recognize. 

The fact that he could recognize a few runes wasn’t a good sign. Familiar necromancy symbols meant something to do with souls, or death, or lichdom, maybe? He couldn’t see any sigils or signs of the Raven Queen, so they weren't looking to summon or destroy anything within her domain. On one hand, that was a relief, but on the other, it meant he wasn’t due for a speedy rescue from one dashingly handsome Reaper any time soon, either. 

Taako was alone. 

Except he wasn’t. 

Damian shuffled over closer to him, crouched beside him and following his eyesight. “Do...do you think they're going to kill us?” He asked, unable to hide the slight tremor in his voice. 

“Probably.” Taako said, and shrugged at Damian's look of shock and panic at his nonchalance. “My boyfriends the Grim Reaper, my dude, if I kick the bucket it's not exactly the end game for cha’boy here. You, on the other hand,” and he grimaced, “that might be a different story.” 

He hoped they could figure out some kind of daring or clever escape before then. Damian actually seemed...nice.  

He didn’t want another innocent life on his conscience. 

They sat in the cold, dead – hah! - silence for a while, Damian pacing back and forth with his hands flailing wildly as he tried to think of a plan. Neither of them could pick the lock on the door, and their magic was useless, and despite all of his scratching the walls were solid; so, all in all, looking like a pretty bleak horizon. It didn’t seem to stop his scheming. Though Taako was grateful to have a friendly face to bounce ideas off of, sometimes that guy just couldn’t stop talking. It was making it hard to actually think. 

“What if, when they take the anti-magic wards off of us, we surprise attack them with-” 

“Anti-magic takes an hour to wear off, bub.” 

“Okay. Alright.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But still, if we can get the upper hand, even just surprise them with a punch, or something, one of us could -” 

“Run? Get help?” Taako’s biting remark cut the Tiefling off, who looked to him with a desperate shrug.  

“I don’t have any better ideas. Its either die to necromancy or...die trying not to be.” For some reason, that particular sentiment pissed him off, and he rose to his full height beside him.  

“There's  _always_ a third option.” 

“Then you better fucking think of one fast Taako, or else -” 

They had been so caught up in spitting ideas back and forth that they hadn't noticed the guards that approached the door, not until it rattled open and they both whirled around in surprise. Two, burly men stood before them, one Taako recognized as Scarface Joe from the bar, and the other an unknown Half-orc with a wicked grin and a thick pouch. Okay, this wouldn’t be too hard to handle, he’d taken on worse. He leant against the wall of his cell and radiated a sense of ease, eyeing his chipped polish. “Sup, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, you here on your honeymoon or-” 

Taako hadn't even managed to finish his uh-fuckin amazing quip, thank you very much, before Damian had launched himself on Scarface with a roar . The   man  stumbled back in surprise, not expecting a Tiefling suddenly clawing at his face. Alright, so, Damian's a rushes in kind of type. Could have used a little bit of warning, but hey, sure, if this was how the night was going. 

The half Orc was still by the door and had that pouch in hand, keeping an eye on Taako and blocking his exit. A quick glance at the scuffle confirmed neither of the other two were going to be done soon. That was fine, he could deal with a little one-on-one action,  _natch_ , just had to watch his dex rolls and he’d be all sweet and dandy. 

With a mistimed leap, a broken boot-heel and a roar of Orcish laughter, Taako suddenly remembered why he had been kicked off team sweet-flips after Wonderland. 

His chin slammed with a solid clunk into solid metal and stars exploded across his vision. Surprisingly, cold floor didn’t great him, and instead a pair of thick, warm arms caught his fall and for a brief moment his mind drifted to Kravitz. Sweet,  _loving_ Kravitz, who was probably wondering why Taako hadn't called him in hours, who was probably already worrying himself to death because that was just the kind of thing his boyfriend did. His vision drifted back, though, and the sneering face of the Orc hazed into view, just as the pouch he had been carrying was pressed against his face and suddenly the overwhelming scent of chemicals soaked into his brain. 

Getting drugged to pass out twice within twenty-four hours probably wasn’t good for you. Then again, neither was necromancy, and yet Taako found himself victim to both.  

Man,  _fuck_ Armos. 

 

When Taako came to for the second time that day - a habit, by now, really, he should be getting used to this – his legs and arms were bound by a scratchy leather and the horrifying scent of blood soaked the air. 

Opening his eyes, the room, once before empty and filled only by threatening chairs and symbols, was now bathed in a red tint, candles burning with an intensity he hadn't seen since a night many,  _many_ cycles ago. Surrounding him were three figures, all cloaked in black glistening with silver trim and hoods pulled taught across faces. They were chanting something in a language that made his ears wilt and filled his head with a scratchy, thick feeling. 

“I have to give it to you guys,” he called, flippant tone just a smidge too broken to be pulled off in his usual manner,” I'm digging the robes. Finally, some necromancers with  _style_. Way to break the cycle, guys, kudos to you.” 

“ _Taako?_ ” His name was barely a whisper on a breath from behind him. He craned his neck, and just spotted dark rams horns curling beside him, and his heart sunk down from his chest to the bottom of his knees.  _Damian_. 

“Taako, I'm so sorry, I didn’t - I thought we could -” 

“It's okay, my dude.” He murmured back. “We all make mistakes.” 

The cloaked figure in the middle stepped forward, and for the first time, Taako thinks, Taako _really thinks,_  and Taako wonders what it's going to be like to die.  

He’s died a lot. He was racking up to like, what, a dozen, now? Eight over the stolen century, a few more thanks to Refuge – and, sure, a few of those times had been scary. The first time in the stolen century had honestly been alright; he’d saved Lup, and died satisfied with that, only to be brought back just like he knew he would. 

Well, he didn’t know he would be. It was a  _very_ well-educated guess. But after that, every cycle, dying was just...an annoyance, mostly. He lost a year to study and Lup was always furious with him for a week after the year reset. 

Refuge was the worst. The first time, when he really, truly, didn’t know that it wasn’t the end, it was terrifying. Violent. He had screamed and thought of all of the things he had regrets about, and the list was long enough that he hadn't even gotten halfway through before oblivion had snatched him away. The only good thing about it had been the surprise. He didn’t have time to be afraid, not much, because he was blasted to pieces before those chemicals in his brain could even be produced. It didn’t get better, even  _knowing_ that he survived, because every loop they went through only became tenser as they all wondered  _what if this was the last?_  

There never was a last loop, not in the way that they had all feared. They beat the worm. Saved the day. Gotten a goddamn blessing from a Goddess. Everything had been fine. 

Even during the battle against The Hunger, even in those life and death odds, Taako had never really worried about death. He didn’t have the time. He was too important to die. He had a Goddess looking out for him, his sister was back, his boyfriend was the Grim Reaper and was alive and he loved him, and they fucking had a plan. He had felt invincible. Undefeatable. And he was. 

But here. 

Right here. Right now. Strapped to a chair in a dark, cold, isolated necromancers' den, surrounded by chanting and a weeping Tiefling and red-lit candles, Taako had time. Taako, watching as the robed figure approached him slowly, and the crackle of arcane energy became a drowning hum in his ears, he had time. 

And he was  _afraid_. 

Because, now, he had the opportunity to really see his death coming. To know, with absolute certainty, in the way the man's outstretched hands were lit with magiks, that he was going to die. To know that there was no way out of it. No magic he could summon. No cool stunt he could pull off. Nothing he could do except be overwhelmed by that one, singular, neverending fear, and it took all of his remaining pride to not scream and wail. 

 _He was going to die._  

Taako, from TV, lover of Kravitz and brother to Lup and Barry and Magnus and son of Merle and sort-of father to Agnus, that brat, _was going to die._  

His last words better be  _fucking_ good. 

“Abraca _fuck_ _-”_  

And then hands were cold and searing on his bare shoulder and he screamed and then he was dead.  

 

Well, no, not really. 

Not  _technically_.  

Taako, rather than feeling a body-melting pain or a mind-pasting spell, felt his fucking _soul_ get punched out from his body and launched like a Gods-blessed football punted across a field. He recognized the feeling; he’d cast his soul into the astral plane before, he knew what being separated felt like – a horrible, tearing sensation, like ripping a piece of thick cloth in half that left him feeling light and hollow and empty. 

He realized he had closed his eyes and blinked them open. It was the astral plane, alright, but it was...different, from how he remembered – the sea of souls was nowhere in sight, and instead they were standing on an expansive, black plain, stretching for miles in endless direction and the sky a desolate mass.  

So, no, this wasn’t exactly  _normal_. Nothing about this was normal. He couldn’t be dead; there was no Sea of Souls, no reaper to help guide them, and he wasn’t a floating orb of nothingness. Glancing down he could actually see his physical form, made of shimmering light that flickered its hue when he moved his arm back and forth.  

Damian – Damian was there too, and he was looking just as confused, but his gaze was focused on their right. Taako followed, and things became crystal clear in the same sense that the crystal shattered.  

Strings, floating from their ethereal bodies, drifted towards a rift just a few feet away. The rift created a window into the scene they had just been astrally ass-kicked from; his stomach dropped at the sight of his lifeless body slumped in a chair, surrounded by runes and dark magic that crackled around the two like a lightening encased snow globe. The strings were pulled through the rift, and latched onto their respective bodies.  

Holy shit. He knew this spell. Astral projection. 

Astral  _fucking_ projection.  

“What the fuck?” Were the only words he could spit out, and Damian shrugged, wondering over and lightly touching his own string, curiously taking it in his hands. “They fucking  _astral_ _projected_ us? What kind of fucking point is that?” 

The gears were turning in his head non-stop and he stormed from the rift in a huff, staring into the never-ending expanse of darkness as if it would offer answers. “Astral projection isn't even that fucking hard! I could cast Astral projection!  _Angus_ could fucking cast Astral projection!  You don’t need runes, or – or fucking cult bullshit, Gods, I don’t even want to  _know_ what kind of spell-tampering necromantic fuckery those assholes have gotten themselves up to.” 

Taako put his head in his hands and groaned. Kravitz would be having a fucking field day with this. When he got back – and that wasn’t an if, that was going to be a when, he was going to find out what kind of bullshit he’d been dragged into and then burn it all to hell – he was personally signing on to that mission to destroy every inch of magic that these cock-suckers had corrupted. Sure, Kravitz wouldn’t be happy, but he could be persuaded with a nice meal or a few kisses and promises of -  

The voice was so soft behind him that he almost didn’t catch it. “Hey, Taako?” 

He spun around, facing back to Damian, who was holding both of their strings in his hands. Taako felt a slight twinge of anxiety at that. No offense to the guy, or anything, those things were just really fucking important. You know, you lose those, you die, fully, all that jazz, not a fun sitch. “Yeah, D-dog?" 

“You wanna know something kinda cool about Tieflings?” The man's tone had dropped a few degrees, and Taako took a hesitant step towards him. He didn’t like the way he was clutching his literal lifeline. 

“Yeah?” 

And Damian flashed him a brilliant, fang-filled smile, the same one as the night they had met, and without the fog of drugs or booze Taako could finally see every inch of malice that dripped from his gaze. “We’re born with a natural advantage in charisma.” 

Then he snapped their soul strings in half. 

And Taako felt like every fiber of his being, like his very  _essence_ was being torn apart, pulled and scraped away with hot, fiery needles that made him drop to his knees and just s _cream_. Scream, at the pain of his soul being forcibly torn from his body, scream, at the knowledge that he hadn't even died when he thought he was helpless but had then let himself be killed by somebody he had thought he could trust. Thundering shockwaves of pain rolled through his body and his vision for a second flashed a stark white, before suddenly he was dry heaving against the same dark plain and his voice was broken and mangled. 

Looking up, his eyes still kind of unfocused and bleary, it seemed Damian had fared no better; but the Tiefling was on his feet, gritting his teeth and shuddering as he still clutched the broken strings in his hands. He staggered, before taking in a deep breath, and Taako was absolutely dumbfounded at the sight of tethers still reaching out from their bodies into the astral plane. Damian clutched their bodies tethers in one hand and their souls in the other, the gap between them achingly large as he stared as if thinking on what to do next.  

“ _Please_...tell me this is the third option.” Taako managed to rasp out, stumbling to his feet, and the Tiefling looked at him on his feet and snorted. 

“This was always plan A, baby. You just weren’t important enough to be invited to that meeting.” 

He adjusted his grip, frighteningly loose on the silver-white threads that were all that separated them both between life and death. He held them both perched between two fingers, examining them, and glanced out to the rift, then back to the threads as if solidifying his idea. Seeming to nod to himself, he glanced over to Taako for a final time. 

“Things are about to get exciting. You should probably watch.” And then he twisted his fingers, reversing the order of the strings, and rebound them together with a violent smash of his fists. The world warped around them, the rift grew brighter, and suddenly the astral plane was gone. 

The flood of energy and pure lifeforce that flowed through him as the strings reconnected them to their bodies was overwhelming enough to make a sob escape from his aching chest. Wet and traitorous tears rolled down his face, and he lolled his head back, hearing a dull  _thunk_ as suddenly things that v _ery much so weren't there before_  connected with wood. Pulling at his straps he found himself still bound to the chair, this stupid _fucking_ chair, and he growled in frustration as he tried to free himself. 

Wait. 

Wait just a fucking second. 

He  _growled_. 

It was a deep, guttural sound, something utterly foreign and not belonging past Taakos lips. He’d never growled before, and fucking certainly had never made a sound that deep. He wasn’t a fucking bear – pun intended. The surprise made him hitch in a breath and, Gods, even that felt foreign; he spends five seconds outside of his body and already couldn’t recognize any of it.  

A snicker curled in his ear and his fists tightened, trying to crane his neck to see where Damian was to spit venom-filled words in his face. “The fucking second I get out of these goddamn polly-pocket diary locks -” 

That wasn’t his voice. 

 _That wasn’t his voice._  

His voice belonged to his body, the body of a lithe, blonde, gaudily dressed and stupidly attractive Elf, the body who stepped just into his view with a smirk too dark to be his own carved across his face. 

His face. Taakos face. His face that he wasn’t fucking attached to right now. A glance down, at blue-hued hands that supposedly belonged to him now, at ragged, ugly clothes, confirmed the fears that sat in his gut making him sick enough shake. 

Damian had  _stolen his fucking body._  

“You know, you couldn’t have made this anymore easier than it was.” And,  _Gods_ , was it fucking whiplash to hear his own voice drip threats towards him, to watch himself saunter around the room picking up weapons and items in a matter both utterly his and utterly wrong. “You’re fucking pitiful, you know that? Do you really trust any stranger who buys you drinks at a bar and sells you their sob story?” 

“You...” he swallowed hard, trying to get over the nauseating feeling of his voice being wrong, his body feeling wrong, everything feeling wrong. “You  _roofied_ me, you wannabe necromancer fuck.” 

Damian laughed-Taako laughed. His head buzzed. “Wannabe? I just swapped our souls,  _Kemosabe_ ,” sarcasm dripping off of Taakos favored term of endearment, and he shuddered, “I feel like that qualifies at least in top fuckin ten somewhere in the necromancy hall of fame. The Raven Queen got one of those? I bet you’d know.” And he shot him a sickening wink, examining his expertly painted nails with a critical eye. 

“Seriously, it took me like ten minutes to get you practically wound around my little pinkie. Nice job on the polish, by the way.” He complimented, wiggling the offender in the air. “I even chucked the whole losing a sibling thing to try and appeal to that cold, frosted heart of yours but I don’t even think I needed it! You were practically in my palm the entire time, it was almost too fuckin easy. You goin soft, Koko?” He grinned.  “I almost wish you could come to see act two – it'll be  _such_ a delight.”  

“Fuck you.” Damian, Taako, spat, and the real Damian laughed.  

“Oh, sweetheart, you're not in a position to be yanking my chains here.” It was eerie, seeing his body conduct himself with such an air of arrogant confidence. Sure, it was how  _he_ was – but knowing this was Damian, knowing that he didn’t even need to pretend right now, that this man who naturally conducted himself light on his feet and finally belonged to that teasing cockiness from that first night, knowing that this was a man who could do whatever he _fucking pleased_  with Taakos family and they wouldn’t even tell the difference between them made him want to scream. 

Surely. Surely, they would be able to tell. This wasn’t him. It was a fucking good pretend, but it wasn’t him. 

“Can I do a villain monologue? I'm gonna do a villain monologue.” Damian interrupted his own,  _internal_ monologue, and Taakos glare deepened to critical levels, making him giggle in delight. He pranced over, reaching low and touching up his chin so they were eye-level. 

“I took over your body.” He said, matter of factly, and the absolute blasé tone of his voice was horrifying. “I swapped our souls, and now, I'm you, and you’re a necromancer. You wanna know why I did this? Why I went into all this fucking effort, of faking a letter, faking a personality, hiring muscle?” 

He faked the fucking Armos letter. Of course he did. “Cos you're a bored, egotistical asshole with a superiority fetish?” 

“Because I  _could_.” The glint in his eye turned to cold steep and he stepped back, dusting himself off slightly with a wicked grin.  

“Well, no, not just that. Mostly that. But, also, I really,  _really_ wanted to see a Reaper. See, that part was true, at least!” And he tapped  Taako  lightly on the nose, making him snap and try and bite his fingers.  ”Easy , boy!  I'm  not going to  _kill_ your beau.” He rolled his eyes as if stating the obvious. “Everyone knows you can't _kill_ a reaper. Their souls are immortal!” 

He was crazy. He could see it. Crazy in his lust for power, to prove his magiks worthy to whatever fucked up God this Warlock had promised himself to. Crazy enough to try and kill a fucking Reaper. 

“No, their souls can't be killed.” Damian mused, tapping a long, elegant and ring-decorated nail to his lips, as if in muse. A beat, before he swept his arms out in a lavish gesture to the setup around him, and in a sinking realization, Taako knew. 

“But they c _an_ be  _trapped,_ right _?_ ” 

Trap Kravitz in a mortal body. Snap the threads tethering him to the astral plane. Destroy him. 

The fear that sank into his bones and chilled his thundering heart was more powerful than the second he thought he was going to die. 

“He’ll notice. He’ll notice you're not me. He fucking – he lo-” 

“Loves you?” Damian finished his sentence and Taako practically snarled, white-hot heat of the anti-magic wards burning scars into his wrists. “I'm sure he does. Your body, anyway.” And he finally let disgust curl over Taakos features, ugly and gnarled. “He’ll probably prefer the personality upgrade.”  

The warlock turned wizard swept away before he could see the hardly-hidden look of devastation that arched across his original face, waving an elegant goodbye and barking out orders to his muscle. “Make sure you move him somewhere else. I don’t want my body being fucked up in some raid or his soul being pulled too early by another bounty hunter.” 

Taako felt the bag being pulled over his head and thanked Istus for the small grace of not being drugged again, hands manhandling him down long hallways, the enveloping, warm darkness providing him ample time to think and get used to the slurring of his stomach. 

He had no magi

No way to call for help. 

No way for anybody to even know who he was. 

This felt like a fate worse than death. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @everyone who thought Damian was a chill guy: BITCH!!! U T H O U GH T
> 
> The spell used to swap the souls is a modified version of, as i said, Astral Projection - "You and up to eight willing creatures within range project your astral bodies into the Astral Plane...The principal difference is the addition of a silvery cord that extends from between your shoulder blades and trails behind you.This cord is your tether to your material body. As long as the tether remains intact, you can find your way home. If the cord is cut-something that can happen only when an effect specifically states that it does-your soul and body are separated, killing you instantly." Damian is a HELLA powerful warlock, fellas, and modified the spell to be able to switch the cords and use it as an attack move. the rest was just high charisma. ( and yes, Tieflings automatically get a +2 to their charisma score! )
> 
> There was such an overwhelming positive response to the first chapter of this and i cant thank you guys enough!!! i really enjoy writing this and im glad you guys do too!  
> Tomorrow ill probably be posting the next update to Starblaster Academy, so updates for both this and that will be slightly delayed? i guess? not as soon as they have been before. i just wanted to leave this on a more exciting cliffhanger.


	3. Love at first sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forward warning - the end of the chapter delves into content of semi-sexual nature, but it gets shut down before anything happens.

Taako  was running late coming home.  

He told himself that he shouldn’t be worried. That it was just him being paranoid –  Taako  had spoken to him over their stones, after all, had even explained that he would be running late because of some kind of diplomatic thing with the high council. They had spoken last night, and sure, it was short and sweet and brief, but  Taako  missed him enough to tell him that he loved him with relative ease and Kravitz felt satisfied with that. 

It didn’t help his nervous ticking, though, the twitching in his legs that he tapped up and down as he tried to focus on his paperwork.  Lup  and Barry were off on a bounty so, instead of working alone, he had decided to catch up on some of his work back at home. Working from home meant when his boyfriend swept through those doors and greeted him with  kisses  he wouldn’t miss a single second of it - and that was an opportunity too irresistible to waste.  

He  _ missed _  him. Even two years on, it was a sentiment he was still adjusting to; to have a place to call home, to  _ want _  days off and be eager in finally clocking out and coming home to a warm pair of arms.  Taako  was still ethereal, to him, loving and being loved in return a concept that hadn't crossed his mind for over six hundred years until that date at the Chug N Squeeze. Before that, even – he wasn’t going to lie to himself, he had definitely spent hours poring over paperwork with that beautiful elf in a spacesuit taunting him from the back of his thoughts. it had been a curse. It wasn’t the first time that he had been flirted with during work hours, sure, but  Taako  had been so... _ unique _ , in his approach. To boldly flirt with him even after vehemently denying his crimes against death, even after seeing his skeletal form, even after knowing that Kravitz wouldn’t take his soul.  Taako  had been interested in all of him, not the reaper part of himself, or the part with a pretty face. 

It was thrilling. It was new. It was dangerous, and electric, and  _ alive _ , and every day Kravitz woke up dizzy with the thought of how lucky he was.  

And here they were – two years on, living together, two cats and a shared bank account – mostly shared, anyway,  Taakos  personal expenses were pulled from a private account borne entirely of necessity – and as happy as the day Kravitz had realized he loved him. Which wasn’t that late into their relationship, something people often found surprising to hear, but what could he say?  Taako  had drawn him into his orbit and he had been helpless the moment their eyes had locked across pink tourmaline.  

He’d never tell  Taako , Gods no, not unless he asked, but it had been the fourth date when he had realized. A dumb, stupid, horrible date, a date that had gone wrong in every conceivable way; from an assassination attempt to a robbery gone wrong to even  _ crocodiles _ , and how  _ fucked _  was that – and Kravitz had been so, so, inconsolably worried that  Taako  would take it as a sign and ditch him. The Reapers life was dangerous enough as it was, and so was  Taakos  job, he couldn't ask that he expect the Elf to give up even the smallest opportunities for safety and relief he got to spend time with him. But  Taako , sweet, perfect,  _ endearing _ Taako , had just smiled at him as he wiped the blood from his skirt, and had held out his hand and asked: “we  gonna  make dinner, babe?”.  

And Kravitz had fallen in love.  

Now here he was. Still smitten, two years later, still aching for him to be home to see his crooked smile and hear the way he called his name like a song. Yeah, Kravitz pined. He freely admitted that. But could you really blame him? 

Taako  had thought about Kravitz being his husband, sometimes. 

Only in the deep, quiet hours of the night, when the man of the hour was comatose in their bed with his face pressed to the pillow and drool seeping from the corner of his open mouth. Kravitz wasn’t a... graceful sleeper, but  Taako  forgave the man, considering he was still getting used to the concept for the first time in six hundred years. Plus, maybe he found his little snores just a  _ tad _  bit adorable.  

It was only in these few minutes, when the moon was dipped low in the sky and shined through their window, that he ever gave the thought a chance. He would trail his fingers feather-light across the dips and divots of Kravitz’s moon bathed skin, tracing every scar - of which there were few, he would think with a pang of jealousy – and thumbing every soft module. He would think about how it would feel to be able to link their fingers together and feel the mutual clink of cold metal.  

Sometimes, Kravitz would wake up during his musing, and he would kiss his questions away before the words could slip off of his tongue. They were made so easy, in the moonlight, but even then, he was always too scared to ask; poured his heart-burning, body-consuming sense of  _ love _  and  _ adoration _  and  _ security _  into the way he kissed him, the way their bodies would press together warm and smooth. He wouldn’t call those nights sex. If he was old fashioned, if he was  _ Kravitz _ , he would call it making love, but that was way too gay for his tastes and only made those moon-based thoughts he had burrow deeper into the back of his mind to hide. 

Pressed against another cold stone wall,  Taako  brought those thoughts up for the first time outside of 3 am. He twisted the knuckle on his ring finger, hearing the satisfying soft pop every few seconds, rubbing the skin raw as he tried to search, to  _ feel _  for something that had never been there. Regret chewed deep into his bones and seeped into his tear ducts; but he refused to cry for himself.  Taako  does not wallow in self-pity. He does not cry over spilled milk, over himself being a coward.  

The anti-magic wards were still cold and jagged on his wrists and he dug into them, trying to use the sense of pain to bring him down to his senses and choke back the shuddering sob that was building in his chest. Blood seeped down his arms and he was grateful for the distraction. He sunk back against the wall with a sigh, thoughts trying to go everywhere except his family and ending up nowhere but. 

He didn't know how long it had been since they had swapped bodies. Every second he spent awake  Taakos  thoughts were consumed on what that fucker was going to do to his family. He already knew the plans for Kravitz – and his heart ached at the thought, the fear he felt even just thinking about the plan primal and deep and all-consuming. He couldn’t think about that too often. The panic attacks just cut into his valuable scheming time. He couldn’t afford to lose himself – if he lost himself, if he let himself succumb to his fucking self-pity, he lost the opportunity to save  Kravtiz . 

And fuck himself, he deserved whatever penance he got. But he couldn’t afford to lose  _ Kravitz _ .  

If Damian could get to Kravitz, if he could – and the thought made his body shudder, his stomach broil – if his plan would work, he could get to  Lup . To Barry. Damian could mortally bind and kill the three people he had already nearly lost. He couldn’t - wouldn’t let that happen. 

Taako  does not cry over feeling sorry for himself. And if the wet, thick streaks that fell down his cheeks in rolling waves were tears then, well, he must be allergic to the moss in here, or something, because  Taako  does not wallow in self-pity.  

He is, maybe, the slightest bit regretful, though. 

Kravitz is lucky enough to be making coffee when  Taako  comes home, sweeping in their door laden with bags of gifts so numerous they almost entirely hid him from view. The door slammed shut behind him, the bags dumped to the floor, and he stood there with hands on his hips while his eyes, settled on Kravitz, lit up in delight. “Missed me, babe?” 

“Always.” He chuckled, tiptoeing his way around piles to wind his arms around his hips and draw him into a soft kiss.  Taako  fumbled into it, at first, though Kravitz really couldn’t blame him considering they’d been a week apart and he hadn't even bothered to try and keep warm the entire time. Soon, though, they eased back into their regular rhythm, and Kravitz's hands on his waist snuck underneath his gauzy shirt. His boyfriend jolted.  

“Gods, that’s cold!” He hissed, pulling them apart. Kravitz rolled his eyes. 

“Sorry love, I forgot to tell you but I am, unfortunately, still dead.” He teased, and  Taako  snorted, picking up a bag at his feet. “ Taako , while I asked for something exciting... I'm not sure a whole store qualifies. Unless they’re all...not for  _ me _ ?” A teasing lilt and he turned his eyes eager to  Taakos  retreating form, who looked over his shoulder and tossed him a wink. 

“Guess you’ll have to find out, huh, handsome?” 

Kravitz was  _ very much _  looking forward to finding out. 

He picked up a bag closest to him, unable to help himself peeking into the contents and wholly disappointed at his findings. It was mostly tossed about spell components; vials of silver here, bundles of herbs there. There was...a lot, a lot more than  Taako  typically bought, even when Angus was coming over for lessons. He frowned. “Love?” 

“ Wassup ?” His voice called from the bedroom, light and lilting. 

“Are you planning to go adventuring again soon?” 

The small pang of fear that shot through his chest was quickly quelled. Sure, he didn’t love the idea of  Taako  going back out adventuring, putting himself in danger, but – he knew his boyfriend could handle himself. He had seen him save the world from the apocalypse, seen him  _ reopen the bonds between their planes, _  he was pretty sure that he would be able to handle a bandit or two. 

It still didn’t stop him worrying. He trusted him, always, knew his worry was needless, but even if he didn’t die, Kravitz still didn’t like the idea of him getting hurt. He needed his boyfriend in one piece if he was ever going to make use of that small, velvet box hidden in the bottom of his side of the cupboard.  

“Hm?”  Taako  interrupted his fears and wandered over, taking a peek in the bag and quickly pulling it from his hands. “Oh, uh, yeah, maybe? Magnus is...getting a little antsy, we think, in his dog thing.” He picked up another from the floor, and cast mage hand to deal with the rest. “Me and Merle were thinking of getting the gang back together again and just doing a few quick jobs here and there.  Nuthin  too serious.” He shrugged, leaning up to press a kiss against Kravitz’s cheek. “Just wanted some guy time,  yknow ?” 

Kravitz didn’t think he had ever heard  Taako  use the phrase guy time before. He blinked, watching as he slotted away the rest of his shopping spree in their room, tried to comprehend what had happened to his suave, snarky boyfriend, and why a football-playing shot-downing beefcake had suddenly taken over his body. Was he sure this wasn’t Magnus? “...did you just say  _ guytime _ ?” 

“Yeah?”  Taako  tossed him a confused look. “You know. Classic Tres Horny Boys.”  

“...right.” Maybe he had just blocked out  Taakos  other uses of the phrase, repressed memories in an attempt to not realize that his boyfriend may secretly be a frat boy. “That’s very caring of you, to make sure he’s okay like that. Just let me know when you’re going out and – stay safe, okay?” He let a drip of concern thread through his voice, seeing  Taakos  face soften and smile as he moved to wind his arms around Kravitz’s neck. 

“Don’t you worry about me, Hot stuff.” He purred, hand warm and smooth against the crook of his neck and stroking his jawline. “I’ll be sure to let you know if anything comes up. Don’t want you dying of worry from me, huh?” And he snickered as he rested his head against his chest. 

“I’m sure that won’t ever be an issue, darling, but I'll try to avoid it for you.”  Taako  hummed a noise in response, happy to simply be draped in Kravitz’s arms for another moment or two before pulling away with a regretful sigh. He ambled over to the kitchen and ran his fingers along the smooth countertop as he examined his station like it was brand new.  

“What do you  wanna  do for  dinner,  Babe? I’m  _ starving _ .” 

Kravitz followed him into the kitchen and sat at the countertop, hands back on his coffee already warmed from  Taakos  skin. “Well, I've had a long day at work...do you think we’ll be able to have my favorite tonight?” He barely hid his snickers beyond a long, drawn-out yawn of fake exhaustion, that seeped into something more real near the end. “I've already got the coffee, you just need to make the toast.” 

Leant against the counter facing him,  Taako  blinked. Kravitz expected the usual onslaught of spluttered insults and the at least five minute long rant about how  _ just because you’re death doesn’t mean you have to eat like a fuckin sadist,  _ _ kravvy _ _ , you’re dating  _ me _  how could you not have taste  _ and hid his expectant smile behind his mug, but his boyfriend simply warped into a smile - rolling his eyes before turning to his stove and lighting the flame with a blasé cast of his hand. 

“ Istus’s  fuckin weaves, Krav, I forgot that dead people have no taste buds.” He rifled around their cupboards for a while before remembering that they kept the butter in the fridge, slapping a slab into the pan with a hiss. That was new. 

Maybe he was just really tired from the trip back home. It had to have been a taxing few days on  Taako  – the  Armos  memorial must have been hell to go through, and Kravitz’s heart ached with sympathy. Going back to a city destroyed by something he created wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do; he only hoped that he somehow got some kind of closure from it, something to ease the night terrors that plagued him every other night. 

Soon toast was plated up and coffee was poured between them, the two settled on the couch with  Taakos  head resting on Kravitz’s chest and his body slotted between his legs. They tossed stories about their day – Kravitz, a particularly daring necromancer who had tried to raise an army of mice, and  Taako  about how he had managed to trick a guy into giving him his shoes – as they ate but  soon  they settled into a comfortable silence. His hands, wound tightly around his boyfriend's waist, were warmed from the coffee and prolonged contact, and itched to move. Itched to feel.  Itche  to reassure himself of his boyfriend's  presence.They  shifted upward after a few seconds of inactivity, inevitably, happily going to settle into their typical lazy day routine, but the second his fingers dug through his thick hair  Taako  froze. 

“Love...?” He murmured, confused, hands retreating at the raised and flattened ears and the sudden tenseness in his shoulders. “Are- did you get hurt?” 

A beat, before his shoulders relaxed, and he let out a huff. “Yeah, yeah sorry. You just – took  Cha’boy  by surprise there.” He excused, ears still flat but body loose and pliant. “Been a lonesome few days. Forgot what this felt like.” 

It hadn’t been... _ that _  long, and usually  Taako  was even more wanting of Kravitz’s hands in his hair after a long break between them. Something didn’t stick right in his head. “Are you sure? If you were hurt you can just-” 

“It's fine, babe, really.” he waved off his concerns and settled back into his chest, leaning his head against Kravitz's palms. “Go wild.” 

After a moment's hesitation he slowly eased his fingers back through  Taakos  hair, not missing the twitch of his ears as he ran the thick locks through in a methodic pattern. He kept to slow, repeated movements, his hands moving soft while his thoughts sped wildly.  

Did something happen in  Armos ? Or maybe on the way back?  Taako  was definitely acting strange; letting him have toast for dinner instead of something elaborate, decadent, and totally worthy of being a welcome home feast; tensing up at Kravitz trying to braid his hair; forgetting where they kept the butter; fumbling their kisses.  

If something had happened to  Taako , he wasn’t going to pressure him into trying to talk about it. He knew better than anybody that  Taako _ didn’t do emotions _  – that the only real way to get the Elf to open up about himself was constant reassurances, unwavering love, things Kravitz had in endless amounts.  

The one thing Kravitz kept circling back to, that niggled in the back of his head, was that  Taakos  memory was getting worse. 

Sure, he had bad days sometimes, where he would forget the name of a place somewhere, the date of something important, a certain herb or the end to a story. The worse moments were rare and far apart; when he would wake up not knowing where he was, who Kravitz was, afraid and alone and so completely, utterly,  _ angry _ . Those were the days that hurt the most, though he thanked the Raven Queen that those moments of blankness never lasted more than a few minutes. But he had thought they were getting better –  Taako  hadn't woken up like that in weeks, and only forgot the smallest things like where he put his knives or which  key  he needed to unlock the front door. They had both rejoiced in what was seemingly his mind repairing itself after its long, arduous journey of linking together missing pieces and reconnecting his memories. 

But if  Taako  was getting worse... 

He heard a hiss as Kravitz had suddenly clenched his lover's hair in his fists, and he murmured his apologies, pressing kisses to the tips of his ears and resumed his stroking. If  Taako  was getting worse – how much worse would he get? Was this his mind not being able to cope with the overwhelming workload? Or was this simply a lapse in recovery? 

He would have to talk to  Lup . Barry. Lucretia, maybe. He couldn’t...he needed to make sure this wasn’t going to get worse. 

Kravitz makes a plan. 

Kravitz’s plan goes out the fucking window later that night, with lips soft against  Taakos  neck and his hands slipping cool around his hips. 

He makes a small murmuring sound of acknowledgment at the touches, giving Kravitz urge to move further, lips trailing up along his jawline ghosting their way around his cheeks and the back of his neck. His arms, warm and coiled around his body, drew him in flush with his own, his kneecaps pressed to the back of  Taakos  knees and hands leaving flirting touches further and further down his chest. They played with the hem of his shorts – and since when had  Taako  worn  _ clothes _  to bed? Really? That had to have been on purpose – toying and teasing, and he heard  Taako  suck in a breath with teeth nipped his earlobe. 

“Kravitz...” He mumbled, who was sucking a mark into the soft skin underlying his jaw as a response, and he felt the elf's breath hitch. Gods, he’d  _ missed _  him – missed his heartbeat, pounding against his chest, the way he fit so elegantly in the curve of Kravitz’s own body, how he smelt like cinnamon and heather and the faint crackle of magic whenever he pressed his nose to his hair.  Taako  may have taught him how to live again but it was the man himself who showed him what truly being  _ alive _  was like. Every second spent away from that near-addicting spark that  Taako  embodied felt like a century. And he had been gone for nearly two weeks, now – so you couldn’t really blame him if he was a little handsy the night the love of his life got back home.  

“I missed you.” Kravitz breathed into the cusp of  Taakos  ear, fingertips sliding just beneath the hem of his shorts to stroke small circles along his sheltered hipbones.  Taako  shuddered as he nibbled at his ear before continuing. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought of you, of this – of you back here, with me, in our bed where I could kiss you breathless and love you the way you deserve,  Taako , the way I do -” His hands inched further past the shorts now and down towards his goal, or at least, would have, if  Taakos  hands hadn’t suddenly shot out from nowhere and grabbed his wrists. 

“Stop.” 

Kravitz froze, obedient, his own silent heart stuttering with worry in his chest.  Taako  released his hands after a second, leaving them outside of his boxers with a huff. “I’m just – I'm not really. In the mood, tonight, I guess. Sorry.” 

He wasn’t ungrateful, that’s what he reassured himself when he pulled away from  Taakos  body and laid on his back staring at the ceiling. It wasn't that he felt put out – he didn't feel disappointed, or frustrated, or needy. The thought of being angry with  Taako  over something like this churned violently in his stomach and made him feel sick. it was an inconceivable worry - he would never –  _ could _  never hold anything like this against him, no; it was just that the little nugget of worry that had begun to seed in the back of his head over  Taakos  behavior at dinner suddenly sprouted into the beginnings of something much, much bigger than he thought.  

Taako  had said no before. Of  course  he had – they’d been dating for two and a half years, give or take, his Lady's sake. There weren't always going to be times where they were both on the same page about what each other wanted. And Kravitz – Kravitz had always been careful, kind, comforting  Taako  in the fact that no, he didn't mind that he wasn’t up to it, that he still loved him regardless, and he  _ did _ . Nothing could ever stop Kravitz from loving  Taako  so unreserved the way he does. He knew his past with  Sazed , he knew what a delicate situation it was whenever it cropped up, knew what words to whisper and which spots to kiss.  

But this.  

The way he had huffed no, the frustrated tone in his voice and the way  Taako  curled in on himself away from Kravitz’s touch. The way, actually, how he reacted to Kravitz’s touches of any intimate kind. This was new. This was unexpected. This was  _ scary _ . It made his mind reel with frightening possibilities. Did he scare him? Had he crossed some boundary he hadn't learned yet? Did  Taako  still love him? Was he getting tired of him? Was this the end for – how had they gotten to this point when only two weeks had passed?  

“Did I do something wrong?” He heard the words escape his lips, small and unexpected. He felt  Taako  shift in the covers next to him and suddenly warm hands were pressed to his cheeks, making him look to his boyfriend who was watching him with concern. 

“No, no, baby,  c’mere  - I'm just tired from traveling, okay? I’m sorry I made you think that. Come on, let’s get your cuddle on.”  Taako  shifted his hands so they were draped around his shoulders and pressed his body close to him, Kravitz allowing himself to wrap his arms around the Elf and bring him in against him. “I’m sorry, baby, you know I love you, okay? Please don’t think something like that.”  

The I love you brought a little spark of warmth to his chest, placating some of the thoughts in his head, and he nuzzled into  Taakos  hair. “I love you, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damian's redemption arc, the one you've all been waiting for
> 
> Aka i couldn't physically bring myself to write anything even remotely close to cheating that went further than kissing and decided that Damian wasn't THAT of a horrible person. Boy howdy even writing the minimal bit of that scene was super uncomfy, I hope i didnt make any of you guys uncomfortable. It was just a thread that needed to be tied up, i couldnt write this pretending like this scenario never would have happened, especially because its plot relevant to kravitzs POV. But its out of the way, and wont be brought up again, so, phew. 
> 
> Also wow???? i loved all of your comments on the last chapter ( and i was absolutely CACKLING with glee reading all of them thank you very much ) and i just!!! appreciate so much the amount of people enjoying this. Thank you so much for following this!!!


	4. Phoning home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako learns some new spells, and fucks up just a little.

It takes him four days to realize he knew how to pick a lock. 

The first, he spends mostly trying to get the hang of his new body. The horns, curved around his temples, were probably chipped or bruised from being constantly slammed against a wall or a bar when he forgot they were there. His lips were scarred and bloodied from being chewed on before he remembered he had fangs now. Damian has a bung leg that went numb sometimes, or shot phantom paints up down his ankle; he has two fingers that can't move properly from being broken, he doesn’t get cold as easily, and his dick isn't even that impressive. 

His wrists were also scarred and rubbed raw, but that was because of Taako consistently digging them into his cuffs.  

On the second day, after trying – and failing – to use magic again, he turns to the one thing he has left - wit.  

“You know, if I wanted to spend the rest of my life trapped in a miserable hole with two children, I would have just married your mom.” 

It earns him a vicious slam of metal against metal as Meat Lug #1 crashes his axe into the cage door, but nothing else. He’s relentless. Taakos tongue is as sharp as his finest blade but even then, it refuses to pierce the payment and fear-hardened emotional armor of his guards. He gives up when his voice grows hoarse and it starts messing with his head again.  

It’s the third day that he notices his body still retains muscle memory. 

It was nothing, at first, something he barely noticed, too deep in thought until the bread he had been eating bumped against his lips. Mealtimes were the worst if just for the sheer, psychological torture of being fed what was essentially just _bird food_ , but it was tearing into that stale hunk of  bland  sust e nance that he realized he was holding the bread with his right hand. _Eating_ , with his right hand. 

Taako was left handed.  

He dropped the bread and it bounced off of the floor – something definitely worrying but not a cause for concern right now -, looking down at his hands. Damián's right hand was definitely more scarred, calloused and worn down than his left, which featured unchipped black paint on nails long and unbitten. Damian was right handed, but Taako wasn’t, and yet, here he was, eating with this body’s dominant hand rather than his own. It was a discovery that helped to aid his increasing speculations that, because only their souls had switched, everything else in their bodies would remain the same. Taako would only have access to Damians Warlock spells, Damian would have to deal with his allergy of peanut butter, and now, they both had the muscle memory of having learnt things that their souls never did. With still a few hours until they burned his candles out and swapped to night shifts Taako explored this idea, and discovered a few new – if unimportant – things about Damian; 

He can hold a handstand for twenty seconds,  

He can roll his tongue,  

He has double-jointed elbows,  

He knew how to speak Elvish, Common, and Infernal, 

He could do a killer fantasy Elvis impression,  

And he could recite the musical Fantasy Rent word for word, like a fucking nerd. 

Of course, none of this actually helped him try to figure out how to escape this never-ending nightmare, but it helped to provide a brief distraction against having panic attacks every twenty minutes. And another good thing? Damian didn’t have night terrors. 

If there was one thing to make him smile, it was imagining that Necromantic blueberry _fuck_ waking up screaming from something Taako dealt with on a daily basis. Have fun dealing with that shit, asshole. 

On the fourth day, Taako decided to learn if Damian knew how to pick locks. Scarface was scheduled for guard duty in about fifteen minutes, or, so he guessed, but there was always a ten-or-so minute empty gap between one of them shuffling off and the other lugging themselves in to stand beside his gate. If he was going to make his daring, dashing, and cunning escape, it would be then, and Damian had been _oh-so-kind_  to leave him hair pins tangled up in his black mop. 

He could appreciate the guy looking after his appearance. Less, knowing it had all been to deceive and then murder him, but still, a point deserved.  

Right on time Scarface heaved a sigh, rolling up his nudie mag and pulling himself to his feet from where he had been slumped against the wall on the ground. He took an achingly long time to glare into the cage, to shuffle down the hallway, all the while Taako rolled the hairpin between his fingers and waited until he was out of view until beginning to work. 

Okay. Anti-magic wards first. They were pretty simple, key in lock cuffs, and even if he couldn’t unlock his cell door getting the cuffs off would be enough. He could blast their asses with whatever kind of magic Damian had up his sleeve, easily. Or so he guessed. He just – he just had to get the locks off his hands first, and that would be easy, right? 

The pin was still in his hand as he willed it into action.  

No, stupid. You can’t just...ASK it to do something. You have to actually do it yourself, did he really think this would work? You can’t just expect to know how to work the tumblers until they clicked, where to angle the pin just right until the lock slid off his wrists and fell to the ground with a clang.  

He realized with a start that he could, in fact, expect to know how to do that, because he had just done it.  

Taako barely bit down the yelp of relief that nearly tore through his throat, wincing as fangs sunk into lips and blood specked around his teeth. Still getting used to that. He rubbed at his wrists and stood as he gave the cuffs a satisfying kick, across the room, because fuck those cuffs, stupid fucking wrist bangles, fuck them. He figured he had about – okay, no, change of plans, because either it had taken him ten minutes to pick his cuffs or his guards had finally learnt the value of punctuality.  

His head spun with ideas as he tried to figure out what his next step was. If he was honest, he hadn't really expected to get this far. But now, he – he had magic, right? It wasn't _his_ magic, it was tied to whatever kind of fucked up God Damian had pledged his soul to, but it was still magic. Any shmuck could cast magic. Angus proved that years ago. 

As steps grew louder and Orc Boy came into view, Taako crossed his fingers, squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed to whoever was listening that Damian had learnt invisibility. 

“Hey, what the _fuck?”_

 

Damian did, in fact, know invisibility, and on top of that, he kept his room unlocked. 

As Taako wandered through the halls of the stronghold, avoiding running into the panicked forms of his two guards – rather easily, considering he was invisible and they were both very, very dumb, looking for stones of farspeech that Taako had crunched beneath his heeled boot the second he found them – he realized that he was being held in an old mansion – it was decrepit, worn down and most of the rooms had been lost to time or nature, but the structure still stood and some places had been made livable again. After escaping the basement (because of course that’s where he was being held, could these fuckers get any more cliché?) he granted himself the leave to explore a little. This was the home base of their operations; if he could learn anything about how Damian worked, anything to disrupt the spell or help him understand what magic he could do without Calvin-balling his way through the spell list for Warlocks, it would be here. 

It didn’t take him long to find Damian’s room. It was practically the only one left with a door, though it was useless, considering it opened easily to his push. Locking it shut behind him and slipping inside, he threw himself onto the bed with a contented sigh. A bed. How he had longed for a _bed_. It was full of papers, sharp edges from metal objects or bottles, but it was still the most fucking comfortable thing he ’ d felt in what seemed like years, and he almost let himself drift away into sleep before pulling himself back from the brink. He wasn’t going to escape and then caught taking a fucking catnap,  he  wasn’t _that_ stupid.  

He sighed, sitting up and shuffling around the papers he was sitting on. Mostly necromancy bullshit; it was probably useful, but he couldn’t understand a single phrase of the wording or rune. Necromancy wasn’t exactly his, uh, _niche_ strong suit. A few notes jotted down about spells that he locked away in the back of his mind – Charm person, Ray of enfeeblement, Enthrall – before the rest, seemingly useless, spilled from his hands onto the floor with a sigh. 

The room was small, but well lit; low-burning candles held in silver holders were spread across any flat surface available, the flickering flames threatening to catch alight the enormous amount of books and journals that were scattered around the room. There was a map on the wall covered in pins with red thread stretched between each, eerily reminding him of his and Barrys search for Lup and he recognized one of the places pinned down as his home in Neverwinter. A shudder ran through his body and it took all of his effort to not rip the map down and burn it. Piles of clothes littered the floor – that was rather homely, at least, though none of them were his style – and a small satchel was sitting on a chair beside the desk. A sack of gold, a map, and a journal greeted him when he examined the contents – Damian travelled light. The journal - a heavy, leather-bound and cracked thing, was thumbed with well use and pages were smudged with ink as he flicked his way through.  

This, it seemed, was where all of his studies in regards to modifying the Astral Projection were written – though he could barely read his legible writing there were crossed off ideas, other spells written in corners as if considered instead and smudged aside, Demiplane and Etherealness and Contact other plane and Arcane gate -  

His hand paused, running back to that one particular spell that had been smudged out and marked too risky and not tied to souls, fingers shaking as he touched the dried ink and tried to remember the specifics of that spell. It wasn’t a spell he’d ever learnt but he remembered it, remembered reading about it somewhere while waiting for Kravitz in Lup and Barrys Astral Plane office.  

Barry kept an alarming number of books on Necromancy for somebody literally hired to hunt it down.  

The spell, though, was Divination, which was why he had taken an interest – it wasn’t Necromancy so, technically, not illegal, and he’d mused it over as a potential back up plan to contact Kravitz if shit ever went south and he couldn’t use his stone of Farspeech. Contact other plane allowed a minute-long period in which the caster could speak with a God or mysterious, planar entity and ask five questions, and though he had figured Kravitz counted as a Planar Entity, he’d written off the spell at the time as too complicated and not thorough enough to warrant learning.  

But now, Gods, now he thanked the Raven Queen for Barrys dumb book hoard and for the necromancer that had made his boyfriend late to date night.  

Taako read over the incantation, repeating the words back silently before snatching up the book and slinging the satchel over his shoulder. He thought better of it, diving through the piles of clothes on the floor and finding something that didn’t make him look like he’d gone dumpster diving and had decided to wear a sack instead of a pair of holey pants. If he was going to see his boyfriend again, even if it wasn’t going to be him, Istus be damned he going to make himself look good. 

A man after his own heart, Damian kept a lot of jewelry.  

The incantation still fresh on his lips he sat down on the bed, clenching the sheets beneath him and squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t know how this was going to work – invisibility was one thing, contacting an ethereal being through a body he still wasn’t used to, through a spell he’d never cast before, was another. 

But, hey, Taako was the greatest transmutation wizard across all realms. This would be a piece of cake. 

He steadied his breathing, trying to focus on the slow and methodic drag of air, the feel of cotton clenched beneath his fingers. Mumbling the incantation over and over again, hoping, praying, _trying_ with every inch of magic he could draw up from the unfamiliar pool that it would work.  

And then he couldn’t feel sheets beneath his fingers anymore. Actually, he couldn’t feel the bed at all, because now he was standing in a black void, and when he blinked open his eyes there was nothing but his shallow panicked breathing and darkness. Darkness, then, a flicker. 

And another one. A flash of white light that was gone in a blink.  

Then the flashes lengthened into a long, angular tear, one so achingly familiar that it felt like his heart was going to collapse in his chest, and with a quiet wink the rift was gone and standing in its place was Kravitz. 

He could have burst into sobs right then and there; seeing Kravitz, seeing Kravitz _okay_ , standing and looking handsome as ever and very, very confused, spinning around until his eyes landed on Taako and narrowed. He reached out, expecting his scythe but, expected, nothing appeared, and his concern seemed to deepen a level. Taako was well aware that he hadn’t said anything and was simply staring like a lovestruck fool, especially when Kravitz cleared his throat. 

“Well, this is certainly a new one.” And, oh _god_ , he was _Cockney_. 

Taako had forgotten just how fucking stupid his work accent was, like - holy shit, just hearing the way he nearly omitted the ‘o’ in _one_ sent him into peals of laughter that only made the frustration and deep-seated confusion sharpen on the Reapers face. It was, frankly, very reminiscent of their very first meeting. One could even say slightly romantic.  

If, you know, Kravitz had even an inkling of an idea of who he was and Taako didn’t look like a character from Fantasy Critical Role.  

The hysterical laughter brought tears to his eyes and he felt a rush of relief, of overflowing _joy_ , that all erupted in this form from just seeing Kravitz here. Fuck, it was some sappy bullshit, but he _missed_ him. Missed his dumb work accent. Missed how well-tailored his suits were, the golden bangles woven in his dreads. 

When he finally wiped his eyes and calmed himself, trying not to clutch his stomach that ached in stitches, he nearly dissolved again as Kravitz simply stood there with barely concealed annoyance. “Are you really going to use your work accent on me?” 

Then the world flashed white, his ears rang, and Taako woke up in Damians room alone. 

 

He’d wasted his one fucking minute on laughing over his boyfriends dumbass work accent. 

Granted, it had been the funniest thing he’d heard in a while, and seeing his boyfriend safe while the past few days he’d been worried sick over what kind of horrible things Damian had concocted for him _may or may not_ have sent him into a little bit of a hysterical, relieved breakdown. But it was still so fucking _frustrating_ – it was his one chance to talk, to warn him about what was going on, and he fucking blew it over a goof. Plus, he had no idea what Kravitz thought of that from his end. A random Tiefling summons him via a very powerful spell, laughs at his accent for a minute, and then disappears? What was going through his head right now? 

Taako let his head thunk against the headboard with a sigh. After the attempted spell he’d gotten out of the mansion right quick – still ignoring the pacing, panicked guards – and had started walking in the direction of what he guessed to be the nearest town. It had only taken him a few hours but by the time the sun had set, he’d found a tavern, secured a room, a shower, some decent fucking food, and a bed to scream out his frustrations at. 

He would try again in the morning. Between travelling back to Phandalin – about another three days travel, if he was lucky – he could probably spare two spell slots a day for the contact. One in the morning, one in the night seemed most efficient, he could burn through his evening one if shit went south but he doubted it would ever happen. Damians body knew a pretty decent number of damaging spells, and the guy was probably proficient with a weapon or too. Plus, _loaded_. He could afford to splurge on something nice.  

The bed felt too big as he crawled into it, too cold. He had thought sleeping on the stone cobblestone floor was shitty but this, this was worse – he was harshly reminded of the empty space beside him, the flatness of blankets where there should be another body. He should be able to reach out and feel cool skin. He should be able to shuffle over and curve is arms around Kravitz’s waist, tucking them into a spoon and feel the warm chuckle as his boyfriend linked their fingers together. But he couldn’t do that, because Damian had fucking taken that away from him, taken even the basic fucking privilege of cuddling with the love of his life after a bad day. 

His pillow was wet without him noticing and he wiped his face once his vision got noticeably blurry, burying his face beneath the sheets and breathing in a long, shuddering breath.  

He was _going_ to find him. He was going to go home. 

 

By the time the morning sun had begun to seep through his curtains and onto the tear-stained pillow, Taako was up and dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to steady his breathing again. 

He had a set amount of questions this time – he'd written them down, had them engraved in his brain, aware of his time limit and what kind of answers Kravitz could give. They couldn’t talk much, the spell was designed mostly for yes or no questions, but he was sure that short phrases could be worked in here or there at Kravitz’s allowance. 

When he popped back into the plain, this time, Kravitz was waiting for him with a summoned chair and hands folded in a defensive position, eyes narrowed and questioning. The glare sent Taakos chest aflutter and his mouth dry, stumbling words he hadn’t prepared. “I, u- how are you?” 

The question was seemingly not what Kravitz expected – and not what Taako had planned, either – and his eyebrows shot upwards. He had never been good at hiding his feelings. “...good?” 

Good. Okay. Taako breathed a sigh of relief and tried to focus back on his list. “Am I home yet?” 

His expression narrowed again. “Unclear.” 

Right, shit, fuck. He wasn’t him anymore. “Is Taako home yet?” 

At this one Kravitz stood, expression furrowing into something more dangerous, protective, and Gods did his heart swell. He fought with himself, for a second, not wanting to answer the question, before huffing a ‘yes’ dripping with unspoken threats. That was three – two more. He chewed on which ones were vital, which ones wouldn’t send Kravitz into spiraling distrust towards him. “Is he acting strange?” 

If his first question had surprised him, this one sent Kravitz into a state of shock. He didn’t seem to have any control over the “maybe?” that slipped out from him, eyes hyper-focused on Taako and full of confusion and fear. It quickly delved into anger as Kravitz considered this as a threat, clenching his fists, and though Taako already knew the answer to this question he felt himself asking it anyway. 

“Do you trust me?” 

The resounding, immediate “No.” was a sucker punch to the chest, and he tried to hold together the pieces of his shattered heart with reassurances like _he doesn’t know it's you_ and _why would he say otherwise?_ He took some relief, perhaps, in the look of confusion and flicker of concern that swept across Kravitz’s face as he felt his own crumple, but then there was another flash of white and he woke up gasping in his room at the tavern.  

And Taako was alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, homebrew editing an existing 5e spell to fit the narrative? its more likely than you think
> 
> This ones up a little early! i dont know when ill be able to write and upload again in the next few days - ive been looped in DMing a game and was only given two days to prepare so like, god help me - so i figured i wouldnt leave you guys hanging. We're getting into the fun stuff now.... :3c  
> Also remember how i said it would be 5 chapters? yeah nah so its gonna be more than that  
> Again thank you guys so much for all of your comments and kudos!!! i never expected such an amazing response and you guys have blown me away. Gives me more ideas for more angst fics. hmm


	5. Broken connections

The moon has been, surprisingly, been no less active since the near-apocalypse.  

The Bureau of Benevolence – previously the Bureau of Balance – was still host to many familiar faces; Carey and Killian could often be spotted training new recruits out on the fields, Avi would say hello if you caught him by the orbs or shopping in a lonely isle at Fantasy Costco, sometimes even Angus would patter by on a break in-between his now frequent cases. While the Tres horny Boys, Lup, Barry, and Davenport had left the moon to make homes for themselves, Lucretia had stayed behind to run the place from the comfort of her home and keep company to the many others that lingered. It wasn’t exactly like she had anywhere else to go.  

As such, walking across the grassy quad on his way to her office wasn’t a lonely voyage. Carey had spotted him and had sprinted over practically immediately, bumbling about her honeymoon - “we really should have caught up sooner, Kravitz, there were so many _explosions_ and I swear we _bankrupted_ a _casino_ ” - and getting caught up on small details of his life whenever he could fit in words between breaths. When she peeled off to go back to training, promising with a wave to organize another catchup later, Angus joined him with a nervous gait as he asked if Kravitz could drop him to Taakos after his meeting. He seemingly relaxed after Kravitz agreed with a smile and filled in the silence with an in-depth explanation of one of his most recent cases. Kravitz was happy to let the boy talk, soaking in the warmth from the glass-filtered sun and wishing he could spend every morning late to work like this. 

That was another thing that came with loving Taako – he hadn’t just been sucked into one life, he was now a part of a confusing, tangled, homely mess of relationships and friendships and _family_. To events, he was no longer  Taakos  plus one, he was _Kravitz_ , he was invited out for coffee to catch up alone and was asked to perform favor's and asked for advice from a plethora of loving, caring people that he had never dreamed of ever calling friends. Kravitz had been dead for over six hundred years; he had never expected to find a family. He had never expected to fall in love. 

They came to a stop by Lucretia's office and Kravitz promised Angus to only be a few minutes, knocking politely and waiting for her quiet “come in” before entering. He’d called ahead, of course – though he now regretted doing so at three in the morning but, well, he couldn’t sleep without getting it out of his head – and she had a pot of tea waiting already. She poured herself a cup and smiled as he entered. “Please, have a seat, Kravitz." 

He allowed her to pour him a cup as he sat, clasping his hands on his lap and let the quiet flow of tea fill the room. She sat, expectantly, waiting for him to speak, while he nervously fiddled with the hems of his shirt and tried to figure out where to begin. 

For one complicated thing, he was here for Taako, despite the fact that Takao still refused to even speak her name or be in the same room as her. He could understand the sentiment – the Voidfish incident isn't exactly something you can get over overnight, and Taako had ended up worse than some – but that didn’t mean that  _he_ couldn’t be friends with the woman. She was respectable; a good leader, a cherished friend for the other IPRE members, and overall a generally kind and smart woman. 

Friend was...stretching it a bit. They shared a mutual respect for one another and a shared concern for Taako’s wellbeing. That’s about where it ended. 

Still, it felt...odd, to be here, behind Taako’s back. He knew if he had asked or mentioned it, the Elf would have violently refused and refuted anything that he said – he’d lie and say he wasn't drowning ten feet deep in water if it meant not having to rely on Lucretia. Plus, Taako was adamant he was getting better, and thinking that he wasn’t would probably do more damage to his morale and state of mind than anything else. It had been a rough journey to get where they were. He didn’t want him thinking it had all been for naught.  

“...Kravitz?” Lucretia was gently touching his hand and he noticed how he was gripping the desk with white-knuckled fingers, sighing as he relaxed and brought himself out of his thoughts. “If another time is better, I don’t mind -” 

“No. No, it's fine.” He shook his head and took a deep breath, trying to organize his emotional rambling into something coherent. “Its - Its Taako. I think he’s getting worse, or – or something’s happened.” 

There was a sharp intake of a breath from her but she hid it well. He knew the horrendous guilt she felt over the whole scenario, how she took sole blame for Taakos broken mind and how Taako had let her with perseverance. She took her hand back and linked them together, it doing a good job of hiding how they were shaking on her lap. “How so?” 

“Its only little things, but he's...acting strange, too.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at his dreads to try and bring stability. “I thought maybe something had happened on his trip to New Armos, but then coupled with forgetting more often, I'm wondering if they come hand in hand.” 

An odd look flickered over Lucretia's face. “New Armos?” 

He shrugged. “Yes. They rebuilt the city and invited him to the opening of a memorial dedicated to the old ruins.” 

A beat, before she reached into her desk and pulled out a notebook, scribbling something into dog-eared and well-worn pages. “I wasn’t aware of this.” She mumbled to herself. “I should make sure to send a charitable donation to the city as a way to help to rebuild.” 

When she tucked this notebook away she dug around for a bit more, pulling out an even thicker, more loved paperback, flipping through until she found a blank page and looked up to him with her pen poised. “What sort of things is he forgetting?” 

“Where we kept the butter. The names of our cats. His favorite color.” He shrugged, trying to think of other things of importance. “But there are other things, too, like...he didn’t like me touching his hair. He let us have toast and coffee for dinner without any complaining. He doesn’t...he just doesn’t seem...like _him_ anymore. Like somethings changed.” Kravitz drew in on himself with arms wrapped around himself as he found himself rambling. “I don’t want to think that  it's  me, because I didn’t think I had - I had done anything, which is why I came here, if you could tell me - I want to know if  _I've_  ruined something, or if it's his memory, or maybe just -” 

“Kravitz.” Her voice calmed his frantic words, drawing his gaze up from his legs and into hers. Steely, authoritative with a hint of concern and a well-hidden flash of protectiveness, and for a second Kravitz was reminded of his Lady.  

He would not want to be in the same room as these two having an argument. 

She stood from behind her desk, coming over and helping him stand with hand reassuringly petting his arm. “I doubt it has anything to do with you. You have...you are one of the only things in this world that he feels safe and secure with, Kravitz, and that is not something Taako gives so easily. It is not something he takes away so easily, either.” Her voice was soothing as she picked up her teacup, holding it in her hands and blowing the steam away, and a small, sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “But, if you're going to worry, you can always invite others around and see if he acts the same way. Angus or Ren, for example. Ease your suspicions.” 

Yes, that would...that would make sense. Lup and Barry had been too busy with a necromancer mission to stop by recently, and Taako only got home a day and a half ago. He hadn’t really talked to anybody yet. “But if it's not me -” 

“And I doubt it will be,” she reassures, but the worried look on her face betrayed her next remarks, “but I didn’t think there would be any relapse over memory. I can't imagine that’s how the brain works – if it was fixing memories, there's no reason for it to have suddenly just gone...kapoot.” She blew a little noise with her mouth that, for a second, was so utterly twin-like, that even she seemed surprised. Lucretia frowned into her cup. 

“I’ll look into it, but for now, Kravitz, I think it would be safe to assume that something just happened on his way to or from Armos. It would have been a tough time, anyway, being a city his relic destroyed.” 

Right. 

Yes.  

What he thought so, in the beginning. 

He had just need Lucretias calm, focused eyes to see and understand the mess of worry and guilt that was rolling around in his head right now. He would talk to Lup, to Barry and maybe Magnus or Merle, and get more opinions, but for now he could draw a shuddering breath and tell himself with confidence that everything was going to be fine.  

“Thank you, Lucretia. For everything.” He smiled, and tried to ignore the soft sadness in her eyes as she said goodbye. 

Angus was hopping from one foot to the other outside of the office and shot him a gap-toothed grin once he left, clutching his bag to his chest and wand clasped tightly in his hands. “Are we ready to go, sir?”  

Kravitz couldn’t help the smile at the sight of him so excited, nodding and materializing his scythe. “Of course. Are you sure you're-” 

There was a sudden, insistent pulling at his chest, the familiar call of the Raven Queen, but with a sense of urgency that made him frown and stumble to the side a little. it felt... _violent_. Unfamiliar. Angus noticed his frown and stopped his bouncing. “Is... everything okay sir?” 

“Of course, Angus, I-” the tug grew sharper and he grunted, swinging his scythe through the air rather ungracefully and ripping a hole to wherever she wanted him to be. “I’ll be back in a second, just-” 

The rift closed behind him leaving Angus’s worried face behind, and Kravitz was in a void.  

Instantly, he recognized it as his Queens domain, but something was different – he wasn’t summoned to _her_ , she wasn’t _anywhere_. He couldn’t feel her presence anywhere near him. This place, it – it was part of the astral plane, but somehow... removed? From it? Why had she summoned him here – _had_ she summoned him here? 

Kravitz spun, trying to find answers, trying to get a hold of where he had been trapped, of what or who had summoned him here, and Kravitz found a Tiefling.  

He instinctively reached for his scythe but nothing appeared, and that seemed to clear one thing up – he wasn’t in a realm where he had control over his exit. A summoning spell? A barter spell, similar to that of Merle and Johns? The Tiefling didn’t look powerful; if anything, he was simply standing there, seemingly a little dumbstruck that his spell even worked. Whatever this spell was, Kravitz needed to find it, and find why this man was doing this, preferably without further dark magiks or bloodshed.

Luckily, he knew the best way to do that. Slipping into his work accent was as natural as sliding into his skeletal form, though he kept that under wraps for now – just on the safe side.  “Well, this is certainly a new one.” 

And then the Tiefling did something only three other people had ever done to that, three people, aliens, in his entire existence as working as a reaper in the service of the Raven Queen.  

He _laughed_. 

He laughed so hard that he was doubled over, knees threatening to buckle and tears running thick down his cheeks. For a long, long, time, that was all he did, and Kravitz felt himself grow tenser with each passing moment. Was it his accent? Was it hysteria at the fact his dangerous magic worked? Was it an obtuse display of confidence? He couldn’t tell – his face was impossible to read as it was covered by his hands, gasping for breath and still dissolving into giggles. 

Kravitz’s patience was beginning to wear thin when he finally pulled himself together, looking at Kravitz directly and saying, still snorting, and a little bit disbelievingly, “Are you really going to use your work accent on me?” 

Then the world flashed white, Kravitz blinked, and he was standing next to a very confused Angus.  

 

After dropping off him with Taako – who was inexplicably confused at first before delving right into their magic lessons – Kravitz excused himself, blaming work issues, and tore himself a rift to _wherever_ Barry was. 

He was launched into a scene of violence; Barry was sweeping his scythe violently through a pack of necromancers, the floor already littered with countless bodies dead and undead. Lup wasn’t anywhere to be seen but with the fire burning hot and vicious around them it was fairly easy to guess she had, at least, been here recently. Barry turned at the unexpected arrival and grinned a dorky grin. The man truly was perfect for the job - unassuming, nerdy, a little on the chubster side in the appearance, but friendly nature only hid his concerning and now job-required interest in necromancy and strange, otherworldly things. The guy looked like he should be playing tabletop games in a dimly-lit gamestore, for crying out loud. It worked so _well_.

“Krav! Hey man, nice to see you! Could do with a little help here, actually.” He tossed the souls of the necromancers he had just downed through a small rift in the plane and gestured to a few still remaining, who were standing almost hesitantly with their wands drawn and runes painted in silver. Burned down candles flickered red-tinted and the air crackled with thick dark energy. He took scope of the scene and shrugged. 

“I don’t mind helping clean up.” 

They swiftly took care of the remainders and soon stood in the lair in silence, examining the runes and what they had been attempting. Barrys brow was particularly furrowed in thought as he examined two chairs strapped back to back, while Kravitz was much more concerned with the cells on the far right of the room. “Sacrifices?” He called.  

“Nah, that’s the weirdest part.” Barry traced a rune painted on the wall with his fingers. “Nobody but the bad boys here. They werent even doing anything, just...hanging around, like they were waiting for something.” 

Kravitz grunted in a concerned thought, turning back and examining the rest of the room with Barry. His stomach twisted seeing all of the dark Magiks coalesced here, and the air was thick and dense enough with necromancy to make his skin crawl and his teeth ache. “Do you recognize any of these?” 

It wasn’t unusual, after hundreds of years of service, for Kravitz to not know a particular necromantic spell, but for Barry to not know? Practically unheard of. So when he shook his head and didn’t move from his spot, Kravitz couldn’t help the piercing worry that seeped into his bones. 

“I recognize some of these, some of the components...here, we used these in our lich ritual,” Kravitz flinched at the mention, still trying to wrap his head around the whole idea, “and these...these are for containment. Some here are for the binding of souls, classic necromancy stuff, but _these_ ones? And the fact they're all put together?” he waved his hand across the whole setup, shrugged. “I have no clue what they mean. It’s a little freaky.” 

“You're telling me.” Kravitz muttered. “We’re going to have to look into this and find out whats going on.” 

Their quiet musing was broken by a hollering cheer. Lup, arms ablaze in her own magic and tossing a burnt book at their feet, was baring a wide adrenaline-fueled grin. “I burnt _all_ of their shit. They had _so much_ fuckin shit, babe! Weird shit, too, but I saved you the best books for your weird nerd collection.” From her garments she reached in and tossed Barry a few novels, him fumbling the catch but screening the titles to find something he recognized. He nodded in recognition of all of them and shrugged. 

“Basic necromancy and even a few divination books. This is _weird_ , Kravitz, I don’t like what was happening here.” Lup pursed her lips and cocked her hips, looking between them with a flickered frown. 

“Jeez, real mood killer here. I get that you're the ambassador of death, Krav, but you don’t gotta be all fuckin _grim_ all the time.” She huffed with a roll of her eyes, Kravitz simply shrugging and materializing his scythe. 

“You work for her too, Lup.” He countered and tore a rift through the air. “Would you like to come to dinner tonight? Angus will be over as well and I'm sure him and Taako would be happy to see you two.” 

He kept quiet about his ulterior motive, deciding to let the two of them know once he was sure it wasn’t just a _relationship_ issue. He didn’t want to drag the two of them into his romantic entanglements if he could help it. 

“Hell yeah, Boner Bro! I’m down for a wine and dine anytime.” She held up a hand for a high-five that Kravitz, rather begrudgingly, returned, a traitorous smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. 

“Please don’t call me that.” 

Lup patted his shoulder endearingly and stepped half through his pre-made rift. “You’ll be my brother in-law one day, dude, might as well start getting used to it.” 

Kravitz tried not to think about the casual way she tossed that at him as they stepped through into Taakos lounge, into a scene of chaotic domesticity.  

Angus was three feet off the ground clinging to a floating ottoman and giggling incessantly, wand clutched tightly in his hand as he whizzed around the room being battered away whenever he got near to Taako. The elf himself was busy in the kitchen; flipping a sandwich that was being toasted in a frying pan and slicing carrots into snack-preferable lengths, and he looked up for a brief second to smile in a greeting. “Sup, homecrashers?” 

“Suh, Kitty Foreman?” She tossed back and threw herself down on the couch, watching Angus screech by with a snort. “Ango! Careful before you break something – preferably one of Taakos ugly ass paintings.” 

“Theyre...my paintings, Lup.” Kravitz winced, and she dropped her gaze to look him dead in the eye, blinking once before turning back to Angus. 

“Preferably one of _Kravitz’s_ ugly ass paintings!” 

“It-it’s a- it’s a _fantasy Edvard Munch_ -!” 

They bickered back and forth between them over the value of paintings and the implication of raising the dead body of fantasy Rembrant to paint more and run extortion claims before Taako announced that food was ready, the conversation forgotten as they piled around the kitchen island and dug into dinner. Lup examined her sandwich with a strange kind of curisosity. 

“Toasted sammies and finger-greens? Since when you been so basic, homeboy?” 

Taako tossed his braid over his shoulder in a extravagant move and rolled his eyes. “You know I've always been that basic bitch, bitch. Try and tell me these aren't the best goddamn toasted sandwiches you ever had.” 

“Wasn't sayin that, Koko. Just surprised.” She dug into her sandwich and the tossed back-and-forth beween them ceased as they all hoofed down the food. 

Things were silent between them for a few minutes, and Kravitz turned thinking about work. Taako seemed to be doing okay at the moment – though he’d missed out a kiss hello, presumably because he was cooking, though that had never stopped him before – and the necromantic runes were something fairly urgent enough to warrant a few off the hours thoughts to. Whatever had been going on there was dark, and dangerous, and needed to be stopped before it nearly happened again. 

Lup, sadly, had burnt all of the necromantic papers, but he knew Barry would be able to figure out the very basics of the spell soon enough, so he wasn’t worried about that. The chairs and the cells suggested a sacrifice or unwilling participant of some sort. The bodyguards and waiting necromancers suggested that it was a lead group effort, but no clear leader had stood out from them, a fact that sat ominously in his gut. He could only hope they had disrupted this cults efforts enough that it would be a while before any other ritual like that was planned. 

Kravitz was only aware that he had zoned out when there was a sharp tugging at his sleeve, making him glance over and see angus standing beside him. “Could you show me where the bathroom is, sir?” He asked, much to his confusion. 

“You know where the bathroom is, Angus. You’ve stayed here often.” 

There was a small hesitation and the boys eyes flickered over to Taako, who was too busy clearing up the plates to notice. “Not - not since the _renovation_ sir, remember?” 

There was a plan here at work that Kravitz wasn’t party to yet. “Right...of course, its just down here.” 

Offering his plate to Taako as he stood, and ignoring Lup and Barrys questioning looks he took Angus down the hall, turning the corner into the small alcove of the house that lead to the bathroom. Angus let go of his hand and crossed his arms with a nervous shuffle of his feet. “Sir, have you...” He hesitated. 

“It's fine, Angus, they cant hear us from here.” He reassured, and the boy nodded, steeling himself with a final deep breath. 

“Sir, is Taako okay?” 

The question sent a rush of panic through his chest but he did his best to hide it, blinking slowly. “What do you mean? Did something happen?” 

“Well, no, not really, its just,” he seemed more nervous that before, worrying his lip raw and holding onto his elbows tightly. “He forgot it was magic day today, and then he had forgotten half of the spells I knew. He tried to teach me _mage hand_ ,  Mr  Kravitz,” a worried, desperate tone seeped into his voice, “and that was one of the first spells he taught me! I thought, I thought maybe he was just goofing, but he was so serious and then – and then he even forgot _how old I was_ , Sir, and -” Tears were beginning to threaten at the edges of the boy detectives warm brown eyes, and Kravitz’s heart ached, dropping down so he was squatting to his level and pulling him, instinctively, into a tight hug. He immediately burst into tears and sobbed quietly into his shoulder. 

“It's okay, Angus, its not your fault. We’re working on fixing his memory. Its going to get better.” He hushed, but the boy continued on, hiccuping between breaths. 

“And he was just – he was so mean like – like back in the b-beginning, when – when we were first meeting eachother, he was - I don’t know but somethings wrong sir and I c-can't –” Kravitz soothed his shuddering breaths as he stroked the boys hair, humming a soft tune from his bardic days to try and quiet his racing heart. Either it worked or that was all he had in him – Angus’s sobs turned to sniffles and he pulled away, wiping his eyes and nose. Kravitz stayed close and thumbed a tear away from his chin. 

“So you noticed Taako acting weird too?” He asked, cautiously, Angus giving him a weak nod. There was a flood of relief but not much; if Taako was simply angry at something Kravitz had done, it wasn’t a hard guess to think that Angus would think it would be directed at him. He gave a sigh and chewed on his lip. “Its nothing you’ve done, Angus, it's – I'm still trying to puzzle it out.” 

“Is he going – is it his memory?” 

“It might be. We're trying to rule out options.” Kravitz stood and held out his hand for Angus to take again, the boy ensnaring his fingers gratefully. “But I don’t want to worry him in case it is, so – keep that between us, please? I promise I'm going to try everything I can to help him get better.” 

Before they headed out back into the hall, after Angus agreed, Kravitz paused, a small thought flirting with a dangerous idea that sunk a deep worry into his chest. “Angus...you’re a studious wizard, right?” 

He looked to him confused. “I like to think so, sir.” 

“Do you know of any...hm.” He sighed, trying to figure out how to phrase this. “Do you know of any...spells, or rituals, that can allow mortal beings to summon reapers like me? Not physically but – into the astral plane with them?” 

Angus frowned, his small brow furrowed deep in thought and he could see his mind racing behind the wide-framed circular glasses. His eyes lit up and he turned to him with a smile still wobbily from the tears. “Contact Other Plane might work. It’s a high-tier spell I looked at once, it allows you to contact ethereal beings in the astral realm and ask them five questions within...a minute, I think.” He suddenly flushed a bit and looked down at his shoes, his next words escaping as barely legible murmurs. “I looked at it in case – if I ever needed you but our stones weren't working.” 

Now _that_  just melted his non-beating heart.

Kravitz didn’t bother to hide his smile and ruffled his hair slightly, a move he’d copied from Taako and the others as a display of affection the boy seemed to cherish. “I assure you, that’ll never be the case, Angus. What school of magic is it?” 

“Divination, sir, which is why I looked at it.” He shrugged and was seemingly oblivious to Kravitz’s breath hitch. “I could call you even without necromancy.” 

 _Divination_. Didn't Lup find some books on Divination at the necromancers lair...? 

“Thank you, Angus.” He managed to choke out. “Let’s not keep the others waiting, shall we?” 

 

Kravitz didn’t really need to sleep, in the same way Taako really didn’t, either, but neither of them were active avoiders of the activity; Taako took every chance he got to curl himself into Kravitz warm side or splay across his chest, breathing deep and repetitive as he dozed off into a comfortable sleep that would last until mid-noon if he wasn’t woken by night terrors. He indulged in the same, as watching Taako sleep turned uncomfortable after being caught, and once he had gotten into the habit it had been hard to break. 

Tonight, however, Kravitz lay In bed, eyes refusing to close and brain frantically whirring to try and piece together everything that had been going on. 

The necromancers lair had featured a set-up ritual of a kind that not one of the top three reapers in the astral realm had seen before. It involved some form of sacrifice, or unwilling participants, as shown through the locked cell doors and the strapped chairs, and had been set up by a cult whos leader was still at large. Books saved by Lup from the fire, likely texts studied by the cult or leader, featured among them Divination work.  

Though it could be coincidence, he had been contacted through a spell of the Divination kind by a random Tiefling who both laughed at and somehow knew that his work accent was for show. A Tiefling so arrogantly cocky in his own abilities that he had spent his whole minute of contact laughing over a botched lilt.  

And that was only _one_ of his problems.  

Taako had been acting strange ever since he had gotten back from his trip; and though he certainly couldn’t rule out any fault of his own, Kravitz struggled to find anything that would be cause for his beloveds' behavior over the past few days. Shying, flinching away from any kind of intimate touch – nothing but a chaste few kisses after dinner, and Kravitz had never thought hed be pining for a touch he was still adjusting to – and forgetting a spectacular amount of little oddities, behaving abnormally friendly aside from apparently being rude with Angus. If something had gone wrong between them, or Taako and someone else, he wasn’t exactly the type to hide it this well; usually it reared its ugly head by now in the form of barely-disguised sarcasm and remarks so petty and shallow they barely lapped around his ankles. But there was _none_ of that.  

All signs pointed towards something happening to Taako on the way to new Armos. His memory, maybe, Kravitz fumbled together, was relapsing because of some kind of traumatic event – the stress of Armos, perhaps, or something else. It made sense but – even then, Taako didn’t seem to be...to even _know_ that anything was wrong. He had tells, and after two years together, Kravitz knew practically every single hint; and nothing was whispering to him that something was off.  

It was inexplicable. It made his brain melt. It made his chest ache with unbearable, _incomprehensible_ loneliness as Taako was curled away from him on the bed with only the shyest of touches.  

When he finally drifted off into a restless sleep, some part of him prayed to have answers given to him through his dreams. 

 

Of course, Reapers don’t dream. 

That’s how he knew, when he blinked his eyes open into the void, that he had been summoned again; only this time, he was alone. He took the opportunity to test a few things – it was still the astral plane, even if it was a mind projection of it, he should still have power over a few things here. Kravitz formed a chair for himself, imposing but nothing to gaudy, and waited. 

He didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds of sitting down the Tiefling suddenly popped into view; dressed in different clothes as the day before, a lot more tidier, neater, less harrowed than the first instance. Still, he seemed surprised at seeing Kravitz - even if he hid it better than the first time and stumbled his way onto his questions seemingly well aware of his time limit. 

“I, u- how are you?” 

Kravit’z eyebrows shot up in surprise. What? What kind of question was that? This wasn’t an interview – this was – this man had summoned _Death_ and he was asking how he was? 

“...Good?” 

The Tiefling breathed an inexplicable sigh of relief, making Kravitz confusion double, but it soon warped into something even more tangled as he moved on. “Am I home yet?” 

How do you even _answer_ that? “Unclear.” 

He seemed to curse himself and an internal battle flickered across his face in a moment of weakness, and Kravitz watched as he dug his nails into his palms to steady himself. “Is Taako home?” 

Confusion warped into a furious sense of protectiveness and he stood, letting the chair dissipate into mist. What did this Tiefling know of Taako – what did he know of his journey? What else did he know about – what could he have possibly -  

He found his lips forming the words and, unable to stop them, unable to say anything else, he ladled every inch of malice and unspoken threats into the word, staring him down with unhidden fury. It, infuriatingly, didn’t seem to have any effect almost like he’d seen it all before. “Yes.” 

It seemed to make the Tiefling pause for a moment, and he watched as he went to chew his lip before catching himself in the motion and retreated back his teeth. His lips were scarred and bloodied already from fangs slicing the delicate skin. “Is he acting strange?” 

Kravitz didn’t know what to feel at that question. 

Confusion? Worry? Fear? Anger? The question that felt like a barely disguised statement hit him like a train and he couldn’t even stop the “maybe?” that slipped out, gaze hyper focused on the man as he tried to process exactly what was going on here. 

He recalled the divination spell, the books, the necromancy, and his eyes hardened. If Taako had been acting weird because of _this_ , if something had happened to him involving necromancy, involving _this_ necromancer, Kravitz was going to make sure he rotted in the eternal stockade for longer than this world would keep on turning. 

The next question was spoken so softly, so delicately that he almost missed it, the question only really processing once he could tear his eyes off of the face of the Tiefling – who looked at him with such unprecedented longing, such...alien fear and sadness that it made his chest confused and his face soften. 

“Do you trust me?” 

And the way his face crumpled when he said “No” so absolute, so sincere, so _devastatingly_ , it fractured something inside of him that Kravitz didn't even know existed for anybody else save for Taako.  

There was a flash of white, and Kravitz woke up gasping in his room, sunlight streaming through the windows, and alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey !! a bit late, like i said, but ive had some personal issues back here and havent had much time to write! itll be the same for a bit but i promise still semi-regular updates.
> 
> ALSO! @iamstuckathome12 made [this ](https://imstuckathome12.tumblr.com/post/183221791190/id-a-pencil-sketch-on-lined-paper-of-taako-and-a)awesome piece of fanart!!!!! Thank you so much, Its wild to see people do such amazing art based off of something ive written and yall really know how to capture my whole ass heart huh
> 
> Thank you guys so much again for the support! i dont know how many more chapters there will be but im thinking 9....? maybe. we gon see


	6. Missing puzzle pieces

It wasn’t often that  Taako  woke up before Kravitz, and he took a moment to lie awake and alone, considering why this was the case this morning.

He could have had another night terror; bad enough to make him leave the bed hiding his tears and stress-bake his fears away. Those nights was particularly rare- usually he would just cling to Kravitz tight and weepy, dig into his shoulder and press flush against his body as he murmured reassurances into his ear and combed through his hair. Or, perhaps, Kravitz had slept in and he had already gone to school. Given the fact he  hadn't  exactly woken up naturally, it was a fair assumption – but the soft thumping of footsteps and a small, hushed voice muttering words he couldn’t hear struck that one off of his list.

Kravitz shook his head and sat up. He was overthinking things.  Taako  had just woken up before him, it happened, sometimes. He didn’t need to go around analyzing and examining everything that happened just because he knew something was up. Sometimes things just happened.

Materializing his uniform and tiptoeing his way out from their room Kravitz could hear  Taako  speaking quietly over his Stone of F arspeech , and emerging from the hallway into their lounge he could see him pacing back and forth, back turned. At the sound of his entry  Taako  twirled around, hanging up immediately, taking a second before breaking into a wide smile. “ Mornin , honey-muffins.”

“ Mornin .” Hand were soft on his waist as he drew him into a brief kiss,  Taako  pulling away with his arms still linked around his neck before Kravitz could make it any deeper. “Something up?”

“Nah.” He tossed aside, pressing a quiet kiss to his cheek and Kravitz relishing in the soft touch. “Just organizing a little something special for you.”

His teasing lilt was not lost on the Reaper and his grip on his hips tightened, a low chuckle building in his throat and lending his tone a husky whisper. “ _Oh_? And what kind of something would that be?” 

Taako  giggled and escaped from his grip before he could press soft lips to the delicate skin of his neck, tossing a wink over his shoulder as he wandered over to a mass pile of paperwork that occupied their kitchen countertop. “You can wait and find out, spoilsport. No fun being a surprise otherwise."

"I don't know, I think I can fake a very realistic surprised face." He got an arched brow in return and raised his hands in mock surrender. "What? I'm a bard. That naturally makes me a pretty convincing actor."

"So long as you don't have to do accents, anyway." Taako teased back, shooing him away from his paperwork with a roll of his eyes and a teasing push of one finger. "Fuck off and let me work in peace, won't you? You're like ravens to spread birdseed." A sharp look. "Don't make a joke about that or I swear to Istus I will magic missile your sweet ass."

With a long, overdrawn, dramatic and weary sigh, Kravitz pulled an apple from their fruit bowl and pressed a final kiss to his head, tearing open a rift into his office. “ I'll  see you tonight?”

“ Don't  leave me hanging, handsome.”  Taako  waved him goodbye and he stepped through the rift, stretching in the thick and comforting silence of the astral plane. He had a lot of paperwork to do, and not many assignments set out for today – it was fairly relaxing, as most days working for the Raven Queen meant. 

Of course, he could have done his paperwork at home. Nothing  was preventing him from doing so; if anything, most days he even  preferred  to.  Taako  would usually stay home and they would spend the day, lazy and blissful, together going through work and laughing over cold cups of coffee. Today, though, he wanted silence, and he wanted _solitary_ silence: Kravitz wanted to think. He needed to be alone to work on all that had been happening, all of the connections and clues, because he felt it deep in his very soul that something was missing. There was some.... link, something screaming at him obvious and blatant in the face that he was unaware of. It was infuriating. 

Then again, one downside of now belonging to a family was the absolute lack of privacy. 

He was barely ten minutes into his work when a rift tore from behind him and  Lup  barreled out, followed closely by a book-toting Barry who was mumbling something about _overtime hours_ and _employee of the month_ awards. They knew that wasn’t a thing, right? He’d explained that to them, right?

Right?

“Alright, Reaper boy, spill the  deets .” She sent papers tumbling to the floor as she hauled herself up onto his desk, Kravitz already holding his head in his hands with a sigh. “You best tell me  what's  up with my bro or I swear to the Bird Momma I'll haul my ass over there right now and drag it out of him instead.”

“Please don’t call her that.” Kravitz groaned, only making her snort and Barry shrug as he  thunked  his books down on a spare ledge of the desk. “Barry? Did you find anything? Please?”

Barry went to speak but  Lup  shushed him with a press of her finger to his lips, death-staring Kravitz who was looking up at her through his fingers. “Uh-uh, Bear. This is an interrogation now. You  wanna  sit and read your creepy death books, sweetie? Honey crunch? Love of my undeath?”

While very obviously a thinly veiled demand rather than an ask, Barry melted immediately, smiling dopily and picking up one of his books with a ‘kay, love’ and materializing a small leather chair that he immediately sank into. Kravitz, knowing he was fighting a losing battle, sighed, pulling his hands away from his face and leaning back into his chair.  Lup  raised her eyebrows. “Well?”

“I don’t know,  Lup .” She looked at him deadpan and he sighed again. “I don’t know, I swear - I know something's happened, but I don’t know what it is. He’s not acting like  anything's  happened. He’s not saying anything and I know, I know he never does but -” He tugged his hands through his hair. “I was worried it was his memory, but Lucretia seems sure that it couldn’t have relapsed, so  I'm  starting to think something might have happened on his trip to New  Armos, or maybe i did something,  but  I  just -  I  don’t know,  Lup ,  I'm  sorry.” Kravitz slid his head back into his hands , helpless. “I _want_ to help, I want _your_ help, I just... i  don’t know.”

There was a beat, between them, and he was fearful it was deadly, before  Lups  cool hands slipped between his own to hold and pull them away from his face. Her expression was nothing but kindness and understanding. 

“Kravitz, you big ole dummy,  I'm  not angry at you – unless you did something to my brother but like, fat chance of that.” She held his hands and he noticed they were shaking, calming down in her comforting grip. “Listen, you may have been dating his ass for two years now but  I've  had to be his twin for over a  hundred .  Taakos  strong. Whatever the fucks happened that’s making him act all kooky and fucked up, he’ll get through it one way or another. We just  gotta  make sure we’re here when he breaks or if he needs us to punch anyone.”

Her words were reassuring and helped him somewhat, but he still had threads of worry threading through his chest. “I know,  Lup , I just wish I could _know_ what it was. It hurts seeing him like this and just – and feeling so helpless. Or even like  I'm  overthinking things.”

She patted him gently on the cheek before lounging back on the desk. “Nah, we all noticed him being weird too. 's why i came to ask if you knew what was up. You want us to come over tonight again? Maybe we can drag something out of him?” He nodded in response and watched as Barry stood, seemingly allowed back into the conversation now.

“That would be wonderful, thank you,  Lup - and d id you find something, Barry?” The scientist mumbled something incohesive in return, placing the book he had been scribbling notes in on the desk next to  Lups  legs. On the page, he had drawn out a replica of the runes that they had seen at the necromancy lair, with notes arrowed out from the sides – types of powders used, what certain runes meant, the meaning of them clipped together. He pointed to one at the top of the page and trailed his finger down a section.

“Okay, so, you see these?” He gestured. “These are the typical everyday necromancy stuff. Basic soul binding. Kiddy junk. These,” and he shifted his pointing, “are for containment. Again, classic necromancy, but they usually don’t go together; soul binding would be for resurrection, containment is usually for summoning demons.  So  first off the bat, this is some wild shit that shouldn’t go together.”

Lup  moved his fingers and pointed to a particular section. “Did we use this one? In  cycle  eighty-two?” He nodded in response.

“Yeah, but  it's  not _just_ lich based. Its more soul necromancy stuff – stabilization,  yknow , getting the soul used to its new body and helping to prevent insanity or dysphoria.” She muttered a hum of assent and he continued.

“But these,” and he hovered over a larger section, brow furrowing tightly, “these are  wack . I don’t know any of these. That means that, A, some kids are  makin  up runes and shit that don’t work, or B, this  isn't  just a ritual. It's way bigger than that.”

A  deep-seated  fear gnawed further into his bones. “What do you mean by not _just_ a ritual? That’s what we walked in on. That’s what it was set up to be.” Barry shook his head and continued on.

“Yeah, there was definitely a ritual planned, but I don’t think that was the main event. I think these, whatever they are, were being used to manipulate an existing spell and change it to do something it wasn’t meant to do.” He fixed his glasses, a nervous tick that Kravitz had picked up on by now, and thought something over. “Like-

If I wanted to cast Detect Magic, which is a ritual, but I wanted it to also disarm any magical alarms or traps, I could use a rune like...here, this one,” he quickly sketched out a chicken-scratch rune that Kravitz recognized as _disarm_ , “in my ritual, and if I was a good enough spell caster it would probably work. Modifying spells is tough shit to do even on a _basic_ level, but this?” He sank back into his chair, pressing his hands to his forehead. “This is some powerful stuff. Whoever's doing this knows what they were doing.”

A beat of hesitant, fearful silence hovered between the three of them, before Kravitz groaned and stood. “Well, keep working on figuring out what it does. I don’t like knowing  there's  a necromancer out there so powerful that even Barry ‘bad ideas’  Bluejeans  doesn’t know what  he's  doing.”

The two of them nodded, agreeing – though Barry gave a mumbled ‘hey, I don’t have bad ideas’ protest – before slipping through another rift promising to be over by six for dinner. With no bounties to be done and no more co-worker gossip Kravitz finally collapsed into his seat, cleaning up the messed paperwork with a quick spell and beginning to work. It was quiet, mind-numbing slog, and provided him a  much-needed  relief from overthinking or panicking.

He wasn’t quite sure how long he had worked for – nothing extreme, he’d managed to grasp astral time well enough by now to make sure he never missed full days or wasn’t late home anymore – before his Stone of  Farspeech  crackled into life, ringing a few times against his chest. Pulling it out from his shirt he thumbed over the rough surface and answered with a “hello?”

“Kravitz.” It was Lucretia. “Kravitz, it’s not his memory. Something must have happened on his trip.”

“What?” Her voice was broken and full of worry, a desperate note seeping into her words relinquishing all formal niceties that he was used to with the woman. “What do you mean, Lucretia?”

“New  Armos  doesn’t _exist_ , Kravitz.” She was breathing heavily and he could imagine the woman in her chair, knees curled up to her chest and head in her hands. “I went to - I went to send our donation to the city, to offer help in anything they needed but – it doesn’t _exist_ , Kravitz.  There's  no such place as New Armos. It – who could have _survived_ to rebuild it?  Taako  never went there. There was no _there_ to go to.”

Kravitz’s fingers were curled tightly around the stone almost threatening to break it, gears turning in his head and panic slowly building as he tried to figure out what was going on. “But that doesn’t make any sense, Lucretia – Lucretia, he got a _letter_ from them. It had an official seal from the city hall and everything.”

“Then it was a good fake.” She was no longer breathing heavily but, now, she had a grim, determined tone, still shaking at the edges but steel-coated. “Can you – do you still have it? If I could see it, maybe I could -”

“Of course.” He was already slicing his way through to his home. “Lucretia, why would he lie about going if he didn’t know – what could have -”

“I don’t know,  Kravtiz .” Her weeping was silent but clear through her voice. “I don’t know this  Taako  any better than you do.”

He wanted to protest. To say that _no, you have a hundred years of him on me; you have his early IPRE days, his youth with_ _ Lup _ _, the beginnings of your friendships being forged, how could you know him no more than I do_ , but he knew that in some form, she was right. The song of Fischer made that clear; the  Taako  he knew now, the  Taako  he loved, the  Taako  he was so frightened for, was a very, very different person to who he was a hundred years ago. To who he was before his memories were erased. Though he knew he could love  Taako  in any form or from any time in a way he was envious – she had seen so much of him that he hid, squandered away now, built walls around, she had seen his true self unlocked before being driven away through ten plus years of trauma. But he felt sorry for her, too. They both loved the same man; but only she could feel regret knowing he is what she made him.

So  all he said was “I’ll be there in ten minutes, Lucretia,” and hung up The Stone of  Farspeech , and hoped that was enough time for her to regain her composure enough to not be embarrassed when he arrived. 

Slicing into his home he was both surprised and relieved to discover he was alone; a note, hand-written in  Taakos signature  handwriting read ‘organizing your surprise!!! ;) Will  b  home late. Don’t wait up’ and signed off with a heart and a lipstick mark. 

While he was slightly relieved at not having to confront  Taako  about this very issue right now, it also just meant he was putting off a very uncomfortable conversation later. Hopefully they could figure out what was going on before tomorrow – he didn’t want to have to drag this out of his boyfriend, especially if he was in denial about whatever had happened, or was trying to ignore it.

After finding the letter and waiting a few more minutes to be polite he rifted his way through directly to  Lucretias  office, the woman not at all surprised to see him and smiling with slightly-red eyes and flushed cheeks. They didn’t bother with hellos and he simply handed the letter to her, watching as she took it delicately and examined it for several long minutes.

It was just beginning to get a bit awkward just standing there – he considered sitting down but decided against it each time, just in case – but as it was getting  uncomfortable  she sighed, placing it down on her desk with shaking hands before clenching them together into white-knuckled links. He looked to her expectantly. 

“ Its  a very good fake.” Her tone was surprisingly even, though she stared off into the distance with a far-away look in her eyes. “The sigil used is the same one that  Armos  used to use in their official documents. Either they stole an official  Armos  stamp to make this seal,” she gestured towards the broken wed wax, “or they had access to one. And the note is just – it's written well, so, by somebody who's had experience in forgery, but not perfect. And nobody else got one of these. Just  Taako .”  So  he was targeted, is what she really said, but she hid it with clasped hands and watery eyes. Neither of them  were  willing to say it aloud.

There was a long, quiet pause as they both took in the information between them, neither knowing what to make of it or what to do. The letter sat between them and glared up at Kravitz with its dead, split, angry red eye, and he snatched it up and tucked it into his pocket in a surprising move. 

“We don’t tell anybody about this.” He decided,  Lucretia  looking to him in  shock.  “Somethings going on, and I don’t - I  can't  have him worried. I need to sort this out before it escalates any more, I need to – he'll just deny it if I ask, so I have to find out for myself first. Please, don’t... don't  tell anybody.” 

Lucretia watched him for a second before sighing heavily, nodding. “Of course, Kravitz. If  its  what you think is  best .”

It's  not. He hates it. He hates keeping things from  Taako  and his family – hates keeping them all in the dark. Hates being alone. “ I'm  sure, Lucretia. I’ll keep you updated.”

 

When he tears a rift back into his home, he decides to figure out exactly what else  Taako  has been untruthful about.

To start with, the bags that he’s kept hidden away from him in the back folds of their wardrobe. He’d been shooed away from every chance he got to glance, under the flirty guise of ‘ you'll  find out soon enough!’ but now, he had the opportunity to see if it really was what  Taako  hinted towards.

Some part of him wished it would be. That it would be something normal, something sexy or kinky or maybe sweet and endearing, something that would ground him and soothe his panicking soul. He knew, of course, that it wouldn’t be. But a part of him hoped.

A part of him that died, going through those bags, finding there were only two left from the mass pile he had brought in earlier. One, that he had already gone through; and another, empty aside from a well-thumbed, scribbled-in copy of his own cookbook ' _cooking with_ _ Taako _ _: Spicing up with spells_.' What had happened to the other bags? Had they been here this morning or had he tossed them yesterday? What had happened to the _contents_ of the bags?

He fumbled for his Stone of  Farspeech , another broken thread connecting as he dialed. “Merle?”

“Hey! It’s  Krabits !” The dwarf hooted in greeting, seemingly to the complaint of others around him. “ Hows  it shaking up in death-city?”

“ Its , fine, Merle, really,” even after all this time he still found it just a little bit awkward talking to the Dwarf. Part of it was, you know, the whole _arm_ thing, and the other was just his wild;y uncontrollable personality. “Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time but -”

“Nonsense!” He protested, cutting Kravitz off. “I always got time for you, little reaper boy.  How's  things with  Taako ?”

Reaper boy? “Fine, Merle, really. He actually mentioned a few days ago that you and him were planning to go back adventuring with Magnus sometime soon?”

There was a faint crash in the background and a loud shout, and Merle took a beat before responding. “Well, shit, did I forget about that or did we organize that drunk?”

Wasn’t...a great start. “He said Magnus had been feeling down recently. Wanted to cheer him up a bit.”

The Stone suddenly crackled loudly and he winced at a yell of ‘get off the phone, old man!’ before a drunken Magnus was suddenly slurring out along the line. “Kravitz! My buddy! How you doing!”

Oh dear. “ I'm  fine, Magnus, really, how are-”

“ I'm  great!” And he really seemed like he was. “I just opened up this dog school back in Ravens Roost, I’ve adopted this dog and I named him Johan,  it's  great, you  gotta  stop by sometime, did you still need those wooden coasters you asked for – also  what's  all this about adventuring?”

Who was still on the line? “ Taako  said you had been upset and mentioned maybe going out together...?  Also  yes. We need the coasters.”

There was a long, uproarious laugh from Magnus, proceeded by another crash, before Merle was back on the line. “He’s fine, Kravitz.  Dunno  when that shit was organized. Tell  Taako  to fuck off back to his school and to not act like  he's  above all us little people, yeah?”

“Of course.” Kravitz hung up the phone before more drunken ruckus could be heard and sunk to the ground beside his bed, linking his hands together and staring into the depths of their shared  wardrobe . Okay. This was fine. It was all fine.

Taako  had lied about being to New  Armos .  Taako  had lied about going out adventuring with Merle and Magnus.  Taako  had lied about what he’d bought in those bags. 

How much else were lies?  How far back did the rabbit hole go?

Kravitz was so wrapped up in his thoughts he barely noticed the newly familiar tugging at his chest, only doing so when it became violent enough to make him gasp. Was he – he was being summoned _again_? Not now, not – what did this guy want?

When he tore his way through into the summoning plane the Tiefling was standing with his hip popped and arms folded, eyebrows arched as if he was disappointed in how long Kravitz had taken to get here. He tapped a spot on his wrist to gesture this with a smirk. Kravitz simply rolled his eyes, materializing a chair sinking down into it as he tried to focus on whatever this was, now, rather than... everthing  else.  It was a welcome break.

The Tiefling still looked at him expectantly, and after a moment's hesitation Kravitz crafted a chair for him too, and he sat down happily in front of him. While still seemingly nervous, he was a lot calmer than previous nights; the scars on his lips were old, and his eyes didn’t look as gaunt.

“Do you know who I am?” He asked, slouched against the chair in a manner eerily familiar. 

“ You're ...a necromancer.” Kravitz slowly allowed, and the  Tielfing  nodded as if saying _yeah,_ _ ill _ _give you that one._ He moved on.

“Are you hunting me?”

Well that was a bit of a dumb question, wasn’t it? The Tiefling obviously knew who he had been summoning this whole time – if he  hadn't  been on his list before for crimes against death, he would have at least been trying to track him down the second  they'd  made contact. If, you know, he hadn’t had other priorities. “Yes.”

It didn’t seem to  phase  him. If anything, he was pleased – but the next question, seemingly, made him hesitant, and he drew in on himself and asked the next one in a much quieter, solemn tone. “Do...do you know what I did?”

At last, _finally_ , there was some thread of connection – some tiny, little loop that brought some things together. It would have to be one hell of a coincidence if he wasn’t the exact leader of the cult they were currently tracking down. Sure, yes, it was a lead he was grateful for – but at the same time, it only  wrought  him more questions. If he was wielding such powerful necromancy, why was he continuously contacting one of the people  whos  literal _job_ it was to hunt people like him down? Why did he seem so hesitant and cautious in the things he said – as if he didn’t know? What did he want with  Taako ? “Unclear.”

And, most surprisingly, a shadow of frustration and annoyance furrowed his brow. It was almost as if he _wanted_ Kravitz to know what the ritual was doing. “Do you know about New  Armos ?”

If there had been any hesitation before that all of this was linked, it was cut clean now, and he felt his fingers curl into fists. What had happened on that trip? “That its non-existent, yes.”

He jumped with a jolt as the Tiefling leapt up, seemingly ecstatic, clasping his hands together and eyes darting around him as ideas churned almost visibly in his head. He obviously hadn't been expecting that answer – and now it opened up all kinds of opportunities for him. There was barely any time left, he could feel it now, trickling away, but still the Tiefling paced. 

With only a few seconds left he paused, reached out and snagged Kravitz’s hands before he could protest. His hands were burning hot and linked neatly with his, and Kravitz was stunned into silence as the Tiefling looked him dead in the eye and rushed his last question. “Do you know how to swap-”

And then with a bright, blinding flash of light, Kravitz was slumped back again against the bed, head reeling and heart pounding and hands feeling far too cold to be normal.

How to swap what?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeeeeeee're getting there! i think we have two more chapters left? I know this one was mostly filler and just filling in little connections, but i promise, its all gonna pop off soon.
> 
> Also MAAAJOR thanks to two amazing people, ChemicalCowardace who drew
> 
> [the boy himself, Damian,](https://chemicalcowardice.tumblr.com/post/183332603033/i-drew-ultimatebonezone-s-tiefling-from-their)
> 
> and again to Iamstuckathome12 who
> 
> [drew this amazing comic!!!](https://imstuckathome12.tumblr.com/post/183276645800/id-a-pencil-sketch-on-lined-paper-of-a-comic)
> 
> your fanart is like writers crack and its all so AMAZING i cannot stress enough how much i love all of you, your support, and the amazing art thats here, yall seriously gonna make me cry
> 
> Also like. i have a character sheet for Damian. Yall know that right


	7. Desperate measures

When Kravitz woke up the next morning, slumped on the couch and covered in a blanket,  Taakos  note of ‘be back soon’ was trapped beneath a peanut-butter sandwich and a mug of lukewarm coffee. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for his beau. Joints were stiff and screamed when he moved from his awkward position, and he clicked his neck, rubbing at his face to wipe away sleep and drool and try to get into a headspace to figure out his day.

Once  Taako  got home, he needed to sit down and talk with him about everything. It wasn’t going to be a pretty conversation, and he was already dreading the afternoon;  Taako  wasn’t exactly one for dealing with emotions head on, and was even less equipped when confronted with them, but it was something that needed to be done. 

Taako  had _lied_ to him. Kept things – pretty significant things, if you asked him – secret,  Armos, the bags, the cult, and they were only the ones he _knew_ about. What else had his boyfriend been hiding from him? His stomach churned itself into sick knots even just thinking about it.

Of course, he trusted  Taako . He loved  Taako . That was never up for debate. It just hurts to think that maybe, just maybe, he had never really earned that trust in return – and while he knew  Taako  had his issues with these kinds of things, he had really thought...he had really thought that, at the very least, he would have been _honest_ in his feelings. That was what made his heart falter; that for the past two years, everything he had said to him could have been a lie.

_Could_ have.

Some desperate part of him clung to that _could_.

Standing up and stretching, body and mind still exhausted despite what seemed to be a solid ten hours of sleep, Kravitz shotgunned the coffee and chewed on the cold sandwich as he wandered throughout his house. _Their_ house. He needed movement when he had to think like this, about something so significant; it helped to stimulate his ideas, the constant refresh of surroundings urging him towards progress, the rhythmic thud of his feet and chew of his jaw creating reassuring background noise. There was nothing scheduled important for work today. He could take a few hours off.

A checklist was made, crossed out, redone; a list of things that needed to be sorted and solved in his head. Of Varying importance and ranked by urgency, they  shifted at each new idea, each fear, each pang of worry;  _ Taako _  was nearly always placed number one, though _The Tiefling_ and _Necromantic soul cult_ were always switching. Further down the line was  _ The _ _surprise_ and _Dinner_? Because while they definitely counted as things he was thinking about, he doubted they really were what he should be focusing on right now.

For one thing,  Taako  was at the top of his list; but where did he even start? He could talk to him until he came home from Gods knows where – and where even was he? It was a  Saturday , and he had gone for groceries the day before yesterday, so, where could he have gone? Was it something to do with his surprise?

God, he didn’t even want to unpack whatever that was. The longer it took to set up and the more hours  Taako  poured into it the less sexy it got and the more concerned it made him. 

Within his rhythmic pacing another concerned thought bubbled to the surface – his sleep had been soundless, interrupted. The blue Tiefling hadn ' t made an appearance since yesterday afternoon; and though while it hadn’t exactly become a routine habit, their parlay, Kravitz would have assumed that going by his pattern before he should have at least been woken up with another few confusing questions.

But his mind was silent, and that was more deafening and colder than any kind of violence he feared. 

The crackling of his Stone of  Farspeech  is what draws him from his pained musing, humming in his pocket. Pulling it out and swiping across the surface to answer it,  he's surprised  to hear Angus’s voice on the other end, bright and chipper with a “hello, sir!”

“Hello, Angus.” He manages to keep his voice calm and steady, grateful for the brief, happy reprieve from his thoughts. “Everything okay?”

“Of course, sir!” His voice his tinny but joyful across the distance. “I was just wondering if I could come over today? I’ve just closed a really big case in a city near Neverwinter so I'mnearby! It was very gruesome and I'm sure Taako and MrsLup would love to hear about it.”

A flood of relief and a few new sprung ideas washed his careening train of thought away, and Kravitz found himself smiling. “That sounds delightful, Angus, we’d be happy to have you.”

He could practically hear the smile through his voice. “Thank you, sir!” there was a small shuffle on the other end, an intake of a breath, and Kravitz waited for him to continue. “Is...is  Taako  doing any better?”

Ah. Yes. Kravitz worried his lip as he thought over his options , over what he could tell Angus. What could he tell that could even be the  truth?  “I... i  don’t know, Angus.”

“Oh.” his voice was small, and he rushed to ease the cracks.

“We’re all working together to help him, Angus, don’t worry for him. I’m sure that everything is going to be fine.” He reassured, not sure if it would help at all, and if he was honest, it was mostly for himself. “I’ll invite Barry and  Lup  over tonight as well, and we can all have a family dinner, how does that sound?”

He pretended he didn’t hear the sniff on the other end as Angus mumbled a half-exited “okay, sir” before bidding his goodbyes. 

A slow plan was formulating in his mind, and he only hoped  Taakos  surprise could wait until after dinner.

Necromancy 101; if you're planning to kill somebody's boyfriend, don’t set up your lair barely a ten-minute walk away from their house.

Taako  nearly gave himself a concussion, slamming behind a wall after turning a corner and nearly coming face to face with himself. And like, seriously, what kind of fucking coincidence was that? He gets through the whole of Neverwinter and the  _ one time _ he's  trying not to be noticed he literally runs into the guy he wants to avoid at all costs?

Well, it wasn’t that much of a surprise, really, considering they were right outside of his house and it made sense that Damian would have been living there. Identity theft and all.

Man, this was so less sexy and compelling than the movie made it seem.

Watching as he sauntered off down the street, filled shopping backs thrown over his shoulder and signature – fancy! Ball gown! _Not_ for necromancy! - heels clicking across the cobblestones,  Taako  slipped from his corner and into a tail. The worst thing about it,  Taako  found himself disgusted with as he followed, streaming between crowds and shadows with a stealth Tiefling borne; was that his outfit was so ridiculous that if you didn’t know that it wasn’t actually  Taako , you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between this dumpster fire mess and his usual, abstract style. 

It was offensive. It was an attack on his character. The color scheme was kind of cute.

They had barely been going  ten  minutes before Damian suddenly dipped off into an alleyway, so quickly  Taako  barely had time to catch the sudden movement and stop, peeking behind and watching his movement from behind a wall. He didn’t go far; he stopped just outside of a closed down, dusted old shop, with boards across the windows and a sign too covered in rust and weathered down to be read. Pulling a set of keys from one of his many cargo pants pockets – something  Taako  had bought drunk, impulsive, and regretful, now paired with a tasteful white tank top that gave a disgusting safari chic vibe – and unlocked the front door that opened on surprisingly quiet hinges. Darkness engulfed him as he stepped downstairs and let it swing shut behind him.

_Shit_. He had been saving his spell slots – he still hadn’t ‘called’ Kravitz yet, knowing he might have to beat himself up and wanting to reserve as many slots as he could. Man, Warlocks were fucking _shit_ at magic stuff. If he was back in his usual body, he could have been casting spells for days, burning shit just for the sake of a goof or to be lazy; now he only had three goddamn spell slots to his name and it was the weirdest cockblock ever. 

What God had Damian pledged himself to for this fuckery? He needed to learn to barter better. Maybe it was Garfield.

Involuntarily, he shuddered at the thought.

He moved over to the door and tested it – unlocked, as he thought, but he was still hesitant to slip down the stairs. Damian was still there, and  Istus  knows who else; if he got caught now, that would be it, no smart talking his way out of that one. But he only had three slots. If he wanted to talk to Kravitz, and get down there safely, he would only have one left to blast his pretty ass back into their proper bodies. 

Weighing his options, and then startled by the sudden clang of metal coming down from the basement, he quietly cast invisibility and padded down the stairs.

Emerging into an eerily similar room as the one he had woken up in several days ago,  Taako  kept to the shadows. Damian was focused working on something he was bent over; spreading silver powder and drawing small runes in the piles, the smell of dark magic and burnt metal making his hair stand on end and burn his eyes. Two bodyguards, one on either side of the room, were standing watch, one nearly asleep on his  weapon  and the other chewing his nails.

Not exactly mamas  pride and joys, huh.

He watched Damian light candles, mutter incantations and burn bundles of herbs, tighten straps on the chairs and fluff cushions, which were a new addition he would have appreciated before. It was an age before, seemingly, he was done; standing back and admiring his handiwork with hands on his hips and his back to  Taako .

It would be _so easy_ to plunge a knife right between his shoulder blades.

“Alright, meatheads,  ill  be back in an hour with Reaper boy. Remember the plan and don’t, for the love of the _Gods_ , let him see you when we get down here.” He accompanied his sudden orders with a snap of his fingers and the snoring guards jerked to attention, nodding and clutching their staves tightly.  Taako  didn’t need to see his face to feel the eye-roll of contempt.

“Alright. Don’t burn the place down.” with a final sweep of the room Damian left, hair – _his_ hair, _his_ goddamn braid, and it wasn’t even plaited well – bouncing over his shoulder in a dramatic flip that screamed  _ Taako _ . How fucking long had he planned this? How much of his life had he examined – had he stolen?

He followed him upstairs if only to slip out the door at the same time he did. There was no need for him to follow - he knew where he was going. Tonight, no, now, an hour from now, Damian was pulling off his big, fuck off dumb plan, and  Taako  had only one thing he could do that didn’t have a chance of ending in death or disaster.

As not to be caught he huddled in the corner of the  alleyway  first, knees pressed to his chest and sunk into the cold and slightly damp stone as he closed his eyes and tried to focus his breathing. It would leave him with one spell slot left, but he needed to warn Kravitz. In whatever cryptic, untrustworthy way that he could. 

They both slipped into the parlay easily, almost like Kravitz had answered his call straight away. With a jolt Taako realized that he hadn't actually figured out what he was going to say in warning yet. How do you warn someone about their impending sort-of death at the hands of their sort-of-but-not-really boyfriend through nothing but questions? And all in a fucking minute?

He didn’t have much time. That thought applied to both being in this place, and being alive.

Their hands were linked before Kravitz could protest and before  Taako  could think to stop himself, and he squeezed, tightly, keeping himself anchored and Kravitz close to directly face him. He stumbled the first thing that came to mind. “Do you have plans with  Taako  tonight?”

Kravitz, as he had so often been over the past few days, was suddenly flustered with confusion. “Yes?”

Well, fuck, then. That would make it easier. “Do you trust him?”

A simpler question, and he couldn’t help the adoring skip of his heartbeat at the sudden softness in his eyes. “Yes.”

A thought, dim but flickering, caught alight in the mess of his thoughts. “Do you _trust me_?” 

A repeated question. Not a question. A request. He spaced out the words _trust me,_ making them almost a separate sentence, pouring every ounce of hope and love and pure, unfiltered, _trust_ into those words as he furiously nodded his head and tried to keep their eye contact as steady as he could. It was a hard thing to do, especially while trying to not burst into tears, and _especially_ when the answer took a few solid seconds to escape and a range of conflicting emotions were plastered like an abstract painting all across his beautiful  boyfriends  face.

“Maybe?”

It was better than a no. He would take it.

And, hey, maybe this meant he could phrase his questions better. “Do you know what time I'll see you and him tonight, during the plans he’s made for you?”

_Fear_. Just a flicker of it; quick and light, hidden quickly by anger and confusion, but seen just for a brief second as it  flit  across his gaze.  Taako  had no time to analyze it before their hands were yanked apart  ( far  too cold now, far too empty; he had never realized before how well their fingers slot together and how when they were apart it made him feel unwholly ) and Kravitz was stepping back. The gap between them felt like a lifetime. “No.”

Gods, no, please – he couldn’t have screwed this up. Seconds ticked away and he searched, desperately, for something he could say, something he could phrase that would bring back whatever shaky connection they had just had. This was potentially the last time he would ever talk to him without a knife to his throat or a corpse on the ground. It couldn’t end like this.   _They_ couldn't end like this.

“Do you _trust me_?” He, finally, begged, clasping his hands to his chest, and desperation, heartbreak, flooded his tone and threatened the tears in the corners of his eyes. Whoever designed this spell could go to _hell_. The unsaid _please_ hung between them like a fragile thread that threatened to snap at a word, at a glance. 

Of course, with his luck, he never got his answer, as the world flashed white once more and he woke up shaking on a cobblestone earth.

That slow plan Kravitz had been formulating was dashed to the rocks as his scheming was, of course, interrupted by another rushed meeting with his friend from afar.

It was different,  than  the others; he seemed desperate, frantic, almost, like he had been running out of time. Whatever message he was trying to send across wasn’t received. Kravitz had left with more questions than answers and an even deeper distrust and  fustration  around his whole situation.

He knew Necromancy. He understood the concept of new and unfamiliar rituals; of necromancers trying to get inside his head, trying psychological torment. But this was – he didn’t even _know_ what he was trying to do. If anything,  It  seemed to stress the Tiefling out more than it bothered Kravitz. At this point, it was just a confusing annoyance; an outlier in this case that was connected to so many threads yet brought him no answers or peace. 

Shit was, how did  Taako  say it? So elegantly, dripping with grandiose?

Shit was  _ wack _ . 

Kravitz shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts, standing up from where he had slumped against the couch and moving to the kitchen to get his Stone of  Farspeech . He had been on his way to call Barry and  Lup , invite them over for dinner; if they were going to be confronting  Taako  about his lies, it would make sense to give him at least a little bit of a support structure to fall back on if things went south.

It also... didn't  feel right, having this talk without  Lup  there. He was her brother, first and foremost; she deserved to know what was going on.

The stone crackled to life in his hands the second he picked it up and he nearly dropped it, surprised, greeting it was a confused ‘hello?’ and answered with rushed and frantic babbling.

“Fuck, Kravitz, we figured it – well, Barry, mostly, I just kind of watched, but we-”

“ Lup ?” He cut her off, giving her a chance to breathe and calm her panting breaths. Had she run from somewhere? “I was just about to call you and ask if you wanted to come over for dinner, but has something come up?”

“We fucking figured it out, Kravitz, we know what the ritual was, and, fuck, Krav, you’re not  gonna  like it.”

A cold unlike any one  he'd  ever felt before shot through his chest and he stilled, clenching the stone in his hand. “Tell me.”

There was a slight shuffling and soon  Barrys  voice was coming through, tinny and just as huffed. “ So  we had an assignment this morning, right, it was easy – just some basic shit, a guy was trying to  ressurect  his mom, make it look like she wasn’t a zombified horrifying corpse, really gory kinky shit-”

“Barry.” He interrupted, voice stern.

“Right. Yeah. Anyway. It was pretty normal death shit but I was examining the ritual he had been using, he had a few others set up just for normal like, actual magic stuff, and I saw he had a few from the ritual we’ve been looking at for a while now, which, you know, is fucking  _ wack,  _ because they weren't even necromancy, just like - basic fucking, trap or alarm rituals."

Gods help him. “Do you think  they're  connected?”

A tinny, shaky, relieved laugh. “Hell no. The reason I didn’t recognize the symbols is ‘cos  theyre  not usually tied to necromancy; like, since fucking when had _tether_ and _mislead_ and _separate_ been used to raise the dead? But yeah so, I saw those, read up on them, copied them down, and – fuck, Krav, fuck me, this guy – we need to stop him before he tries to do it again.”

Confused but growing horror was beginning to seep into his projected bones, and Kravitz tried to figure out what he was meaning. “What does this _mean_ , Barry, what was the ritual meant to be -”

“He figured out how to fucking swap souls with somebody, Kravitz. Take over their body.”

Slowly, slightly, connections began to click into place.

“I don’t fucking know how, and I don’t even fucking know if it would work - I still  havent  figured out what spell he would use, something tied to the astral plane, I would guess-”

Threads tethered together. Bonds reformed. Memories and far-spread out ideas coalesced and formed into a massive, horrifying, _sickening_ realization.

“Barry?”

“But If I could – yeah?” The two seemed to hear the dead shock in his voice, quietened down their spewing ideas. 

“Do you know where the original ritual was located?” His own voice surprised him. He couldn’t feel his lips moving. Couldn’t hear anything aside from his own fake heartbeat, couldn’t hear the click of a door closing from far down the hallway.

“Uh...” Books rustled. Rough. “A few days out from Neverwinter, I think. Just outside of where that place  Armos  used to be, actually.”

Warm, but foreign arms wrapped around his waist, grounding him to reality to hear his name being called for by  Lup . How long had he zoned out for? Who was holding him like this?

“Miss me, handsome?” The man pretending to be Taako  purred, and he ended the call with a shaky swipe of his thumb.

“Oh fuck.” Said Kravitz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its a little late and a slight shorter than the others, but there wasnt really much left for Kravitz to figure out and man i REALLY wanted to end this chapter on a cliffhanger before the big finale, yknow? 
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for all of your kind words and kudos and absolutely stunning fanart - i couldnt have imagined the overwhelming and positive response i got when writing this and yall have blown me away. Ya like angst, hm................? hm


	8. Revelations

There was a funny little expression, one Kravitz had learned over spending more and more time in the mortal realm with Taako and his family. Well, there were a lot of expressions he’d had to learn, really – six hundred years outside of culture meant for a lot of missed inside jokes, turns of phrase, and slang – but right now, there was one he had learned that seemed fairly applicable to his current situation. 

Love is blind. 

The expression came to him now in a blinding flash of horrifying realization; because there was a pair of arms encircling his waist and lips pressed to his neck that until ten seconds ago he hadn't realized were foreign. The murmured “Everything okay?” in the falsely alluring voice that he had loved for two years was whispered quietly in his ear, but struck his heart like a blade, and made his breath hitch in his throat. Love had to be blind – if it wasn’t, Kravitz didn’t think he could live with himself knowing he hadn't realized that his Taako wasn’t home.  

The stone was shaking in his clenched fist and it took every ounce of willpower that hadn’t been drained from him to not slip into his skeletal form and tear whoever this was apart. As it was, his skin flickered, and Taako – fake Taako, not his, not _his_ – pulled away and turned him around in concern. “Babe?” 

 _Don’t call me that._ “I'm fine, everything's fine, Taako.” He smiled through grit teeth but it was clear the man wasn’t buying It, cocking his hip and folding his arms to death-stare through an arched brow. 

“Really? Cos usually you don’t go all skelator on me like that. You look like you’ve just had the Bird Momma demote you down to janitor duty.” 

Kravitz’s hands squeezed into white-knuckled fists and he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. “It's fine, really. I was just told one of my co-workers got injured on duty. Susan, she feeds the cats, you know the one.” 

It was obvious he didn’t with the flash of unrecognition in his eyes, but fake-Taako flashed a wide grin anyway. “Oh yeah, love that chick. She all good?” 

 _No, you don’t, you hate her. You ‘accidently’ spilled fruit punch all over her white blouse at the work function last year and got all mortals banned from the astral plane candlelight's party._ “Yes, she’ll be fine. Just a bit worried, is all.” 

“Good.” He tried not to tense as his arms were suddenly wound around Kravitz's neck, pulling them together in a way that felt all too familiar and yet all too wrong. The gentle peck on his check made him want to throw up. “Can't have you pulling the boney stunt tonight, we got big plans, baby. You ready to go?” 

“Of course.” He forced a smile and hoped it wasn’t too obviously fake. Not fake enough, however, for fake-Taako to catch on, and he pulled him into a proper kiss that made Kravitz shudder and clench his shirt beneath his hands.  

Never, not in a million, a hundred million years, a thousand lifetimes, would he have thought he would hate kissing Taako. 

How had he not caught on before? How had it taken him this long to realize? He kissed wrong, fumbled it, his touches were hesitant and the look he gave when they broke away was empty and devoid of any care. His teasing laugh, something Kravitz so often yearned for, was warbled and forced; his smile too wide and the hands on his neck stroked his jawline in a matter utterly horrifying. “Don't get too excited, hot stuff. That’ll be later.” An empty promise that he closed with a wink before, thankfully, pulling away and heading to their room. “I'll get changed and we can head off! It's only a ten-minute walk so don’t bother with a jacket.” 

The click of the door shutting behind him seemed to be the catalyst for Kravitz destruction; all of the air was knocked from his lungs and he slumped against the couch, face numb and ears ringing from his overwhelming thoughts and simple, irrefutable anger. 

Anger at the man who had stolen his love away from him and taken his place. Anger at himself for not noticing that the man he loved wasn’t himself anymore, for not noticing despite all of the obvious clues. Anger that Taako had to have spent the past week or so alone, afraid, _trapped_ , not even -  

The Tiefling. 

The realization shattered what was left of his heart and he gave an audible gasp, hearing noises of dressing and clutter ease for a second from the bedroom before continuing.  

Of course. _Of course._ Who else would have known about his work accent, would have gaped at him so fondly and asked if he was alright, who else would have clasped their hands in desperation or crumpled at his obvious mistrust? Who else would have made sure to contact him every day even if the questions he asked weren't of any use? If all they did was burn up a spell slot for the opportunity to see him? His chest ached as he flickered through all of their meetings, at the barely hidden tears that shone through in their last conversation and it all made _so much sense now._ How could he have not known? How could he have treated him so coldly? 

_You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have known it was him._

Taakos destroyed look of dejected hope haunted him, regardless, and it was all he could do to not fly into the bedroom and make that man pay for everything that he had done to his family.  

His – his family. 

Numb fingers fumbled for his Stone of Farspeech and swiped a call, pressing it to his lips to speak quietly and quickly. Lup picked up practically immediately. “Kravitz? Is everything cool? You hung up really-” 

“If I don’t call you back in fifteen minutes, I need you and Barry to rift to wherever I am and whatever it looks like, I need you to trust and help me.” He spoke quickly with eyes glued to the bedroom door. It was lucky he did. The call was ended and Lups confused questions were cut off as fake-Taako swept from the room and Kravitz tossed him a smile.  

“Lets hit the road, Bones. You excited?” He offered him a hand and after what he hoped wasn’t an obvious hesitation, he took it, keeping their fingers intertwined. 

“To spend time with you?” Kravitz struggled to keep up his manner. Flirting with somebody who wasn’t Taako was – well, sure, it _was_ technically Taako, but the idea of what he was doing still made him sick to his stomach and he thanked the Raven Queen that whoever this was didn’t let things go beyond kisses. “Of course.” 

A laugh that sounded too fake and high-pitched, a playful slap with no real passion behind it. “Sap!” 

 

Their fingers were slot together but they fit awkwardly, Taakos hands wrapped hot around his cool ones were making their palms sweat. Everything about this felt wrong; the way their hands swung too forcefully, the way Taako walked out of time and without any of his usual swagger, the silence between them tense and uncomfortable. He was walking with a stranger. He was _holding_ a stranger.  

The streets of Neverwinter felt emptier than usual, only a smattering of people wandering the streets bundled up in jackets and gloves. It wasn’t winter, so there wasn’t any snow or bitter rain to combat, but the chill of the wind was enough to send shivers along spines and to spread goosebumps across all exposed skin. Kravitz blamed his chill on the air, rather than the necromancer beside him. When he asked, anyway. 

Whatever this man planned to do, it was all he could hope that it would lead him to the real Taako. He wasn’t sure how that would work – Taako had been contacting him via magical means so, if he had kept him caged, why had he not installed magic wards, and why had Taako not broken out already – but he had to assume that they would meet one way or another. That’s what he said, right? Or had it been more along the lines of wishful thinking? 

He just hoped Taako wasn’t hurt. Any more so than he seemed, anyway. 

After a few more minutes of tense, awkward silence that fake-Taako had tried to fill with casual conversation, they soon veered off into a shady alleyway and came to a stop outside of an abandoned tailoring outlet. It was in the lesser wealthy sect of Neverwinter establishments, but fake-Taako simply winked and kicked a seemingly boarded up door open with his heeled boot. He held it open for Kravitz to go first. 

“After you, sir.” He said with a wink, and after a moment of hesitation that he hoped he could hide with the cold, Kravitz ducked in.  

Darkness enveloped him and the door, with a quiet click, quickly closed shut behind him, fake-Taakos hands a fleeting touch on his back encouraging him forward and down the steps. It was a hard and increasingly dangerous journey considering the non-existence of lights and a few times, he thought he would trip, but eventually, the stairs came to a stop and he was walking on rough tiles instead. A hand on his back pulled him to stop. 

“You wanna know why I brought you here, baby?” His disgustingly sweet voice taunted in his ear, hand slipping into his own and squeezing it perhaps too tightly to be comforting.  

“Of course.” He choked back, and in the quiet darkness beside him, he could _feel_ the malicious grin.  

Candles, burning red and half melted, were alighted with a waving _phwoosh_ , arching in a circle around the walls like a race of flame that ended directly in Kravitz’s line of sight. Beneath them and painted on the wall in silver and black paint, powder, and singe-marks were the runes and ritual marks that matched to the ones of the original ritual side - but Fake-Taako wouldn't have known he'd recognize these, of course. Two chairs with leather straps and plush pillows were nailed back to back and sat right beneath the painted ritual. Though this room featured less cages, less books and papers, it boasted one particular element that the original site hadn't; two bodies crumpled on the floor, right in the corners and either very dead or very unconscious.  

“What the _fuck_?” Fake-Taako tore his hand from Kravitz’s and jolted forwards towards the middle of the room, dead-staring the heaped forms of his compatriots. Kravitz couldn’t tell where the fake-confusion started and the real shock began. “Who in the actual-” 

Kravitz knew, of course, that this wasn’t the real Taako. He knew that it wasn’t really the love of his life; that it was just another man inhabiting his body, a necromancer, somebody who deserved whatever suffering he would get after this was all done. 

Despite knowing this, it was still a horrifying and painful sight to suddenly see his body launched across the room, struck in a powerful bolt of arcane energy that slammed him into the opposing wall and knocked away half of the candles. 

“Give me back my body you necromantic-wannabe son of a _FUCK!”_

And Kravitz saw a Tiefling.  

He was crackling with magic, bolts of red lightning curling around his fingers and along his arms, lips curled In a furious snarl that bared his fangs and darkened the black pools of his eyes. His clothes were torn in places and threads of broken jewelry hung haphazardly from his frame. A black eye was beginning to flower. Stubble had turned more into a small, soft shadow, which was marked in blood and dirt and scars.  

The Tiefling looked nothing like Taako. But the way he softened when he saw Kravitz staring, the slight drop of his jaw, and the glimmer of hope and absolute, silent but _unequivocal_ love that swept across his gaze was undeniably, stunningly, _him_. 

If he hadn't already made that decision months ago, and already had a plan in how to propose it, Kravitz would have dropped to his knees and asked to marry him on the spot. 

Instead, however, he stood gaping like a fool as Taako – the real Taako, _his_   Taako  – suddenly backtracked and put his hands up in a surrender-like motion. “Okay wait, listen to me, okay, _listen_ , you can't kill me, that’s not Taako, I promise, please, if you would just listen -” 

He was going on and on but Kravitz barely heard, focusing on the way his lips moved and his leaning stance. Had he gotten injured? Who had hurt him? Had it been recently? His lips must have been scarred from chewing on them with those fangs of his. How had he been dealing with the horns? That would have been weird to live with suddenly, he reckoned. They were dumb thoughts, _stupid_ thoughts, things that he was racing to think about because he was overwhelmed with the rushing realization that Taako was _home_. That he was here; that he was fine – or as fine as one could be trapped in another person body – and he was perfect. _Always_ perfect. 

But Taako didn’t know that. Shit, wait, yeah, Taako didn’t actually know that he had figured it out. He had been so focused staring like a lovestruck idiot that when he zoned back in he was still talking frantically, as if he expected Kravitz to strike him down within the moment. 

“-and you always take vanilla in your coffee, sometimes you'll get halfway through a book before realizing you’ve already read it but you'll finish it anyway, because you say it would be rude to the author not to, and you always examine flowers before you buy them or smell them because one time you didn’t and you got stung by a bee, and you never sleep without socks on like a fucking weirdo, you can't sleep if there's a window open but you can if the curtains are closed, which if I can reiterate, is _really fucking weird-”_

He couldn’t take a single second more of it. He was already running over there and kissing him, they’ve been apart for too long already, this was ridiculous.  

Taakos lips were too thin to be his; the stubble scratched at Kravitz’s chin; the hands that cupped his neck and trailed his jaw were clawed and his hips, held close in his hands, were spread apart far too wide; but the way he kissed back was so purely and unfathomably  _Taako_  that it hurt.  

When they finally, truly broke apart aside from for breathing, it was because Taakos cheeks were wet with tears and his breaths were beginning to stutter In the not-good kind of way. Kravitz hands had drifted up from his hips and were cupping his face now, and with his thumb he wiped the trails from his cheeks, watching as he tried to stop the already-barely contained sobbing with a frustrated huff and a quip. “You watch it there, bud, if you're so eager to be kissing other dudes-” 

“I knew it wasn’t you.” Kravitz couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled in his chest, their foreheads pressed together and heartbeat beating steady and comforting against his still chest. “Not until this afternoon, not until after you had called and Barry figured out the spell, but I knew - I knew something was _wrong_ , Taako, I just didn’t think - I couldn’t have known -” his own throat was beginning to betray him now and his voice cracked.  Taako sniffed, watched him talk with shining eyes. “I knew – we all knew, we all knew it  wasn't  you, not in the sense that it was but – we were all trying so _hard_ to figure out what was wrong – _Gods_ , Taako, I love you so much, I was so _afraid_ of losing you -” 

He kissed him again, soft and unable to help himself, a way to try and stem his own tears that were threatening at the crinkles of his eyes. Taako hiccupped into it, but it was still perfect, and when they pulled apart his own mass flow of words poured out in between sniffs and hiccups.  

“Do you know – _hic_ – how fucking hard it was, Kravitz, trying to – _hic_ – talking to you every day and you looking at me like – _hic_ – like I was just some, fucking, _dogshit_ that you had stepped on, like I was some fucking – hic - rando off the street, how hard it was thinking every time – _hic_ – that every time we talked it would be the last time and you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t _know_ , Kravitz,” he dissolved into more hiccupy tears and Kravitz made quiet noises of comfort, stroking his cheeks and pressing kisses to his nose, eyelids, forehead. “I can't lose you, Kravitz, I couldn’t - I felt so fucking _helpless_ , I can't lose you like I lost everybody else -” 

“I know, I know, you won't, okay, love? You won't.” Kravitz hushed reassurances and moved his hands to embrace him tightly, stroking his hair as Taako buried his head in his neck and squeezed back just as hard. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m never going anywhere. I love you.” 

The sniffled “natch. Same.” in his ear made him smile, and he pressed a kiss to his head, rocking them back and forth. 

After a few more seconds Kravitz pulled himself a little ways from his haze and glanced over at where fake-Taako had been launched – the man was still crumpled on the floor, seemingly out cold. He was relieved at the sight after the initial pang of fear. Regretfully, he pulled apart, still holding Taako close but making it so he could see his face. “I need to get this sorted out, love, so we can fix everything, but I'm not going anywhere, okay? I’ll be right here.” Taako was latched to him like he would disappear as soon as they stopped touching, and even after his reassurances he still wouldn’t let go. As much as he relished the contact, the more time that waned gave the man more time to wake up from his injuries. “Taako, love, I need-” 

“Promise me.” His voice was shaky, and his eyes were red-rimmed with tears. “Promise me you’ll - you're not going to forget I'm me. That you’ll come back. That you won't forget who I am.” 

There was something vulnerable there. Something soft and quiet and fragile that Taako only bared to him in his worst moments.  

“I could never, Taako. I promise, okay?” He wrapped him back in a hug, tight and brief, murmuring his promises into his hair and avoiding the horns. “I'll be done in five minutes, and after we can figure out the spell to get you back everything will be back to normal – we can go to that restaurant you like, we can stop by and visit all of your friends, we can go on that bar-hopping tour you wanted to do, we can have the stupidest, gaudiest, most ridiculous wedding Faerun has ever hosted, we can try and figure out if Magnus’s new friend Hans is a dog or a person, I promise, I'm never going to leave-” 

Taako had stilled in his arms somewhere in all of his listing of things they had plans to do – he was rambling at this point, trying to remember things Taako had made plans with him to do but had never gotten around to doing or things they had discussed drunk and stupid – and he paused, feeling him pull back and cup his cheeks quizzically. He looked back at him confused and concerned. A beat passed, before the shadow of a smile flickered across his face – because, despite the fact that it wasn’t _his_ face, his gaze and expression were so undeniably  _Taako_ there was practically no distinction – before he gave the most beautiful, snickering snort imaginable.  

“Little, uh, problem there, handsome.” He raised his eyebrows at the deepening confusion on Kravitz's face. “You actually have to _ask_ me before you can plan the wedding.” 

Oh, fuck. 

“Oh, fuck.” Said Kravitz. 

Taako dissolved into snorts still clinging to his body, and Kravitz felt his face grow hot as he tried to stumble his excuse and explanations. “I mean, at some point, obviously, if – if you're comfortable – not now, not – whenever you're -” 

“Gods, you absolute fucking dork,” Taako gasped out between snorts, hands cupping Kravitz's cheeks as he looked up to him with a beautiful, radiant smile, “this is the absolute  _worst_ place to propose, I cannot believe it, of course you ask me to get hitched in a fucking _necromancer's lair_ you goth _fuck_ -” 

“Taako,” he stumbled, “Taako you know that’s not -” 

“Like, is this even _legal_? Do you have to ask permission first from Queenie? Can you even get married considering you're already dead or is it like some weird illegal necrophiliac thing?” 

“Taako, _please_ -” 

“Ask me again.” Taako interrupted with a wave of a hand, a move usually flippant and smooth made clumsy by his lack of experience in claws. Kravitz, cut short and heart swollen at the soft look in his eyes, swallowed hard. 

“Will you?” he asked, softly, and Taako wound his arms around his shoulders. 

“Natch.” He said. 

Sure, it was unorthodox, getting engaged in a necromancer's lair while Taakos body was possessed by a murderous, evil magic user, but since when had anything about their relationship been normal, anyway? 

“I love you. I love you - I love you so _much_ , Taako. ” Kravitz murmured, unable to help the dumb, dopey smile on his face, and  Taako shrugged but his red eyes and freshly-damp cheeks betrayed him. Though he mumbled the words back affirmative they were lost in the kiss Kravitz slammed into him seconds later, passionate and familiar and overwhelming as the realization finally sunk into him, of making Taako his husband, of _being_  Taakos. 

It would have been perfect. A lot of would have, could have, should have, in the past few minutes; it would have been perfect, if the furious, hell-blazing screech of Lup didn’t interrupt and make Kravitz nearly lose his tongue to Taakos newly-developed fangs. 

Right. Fifteen minutes. Fuck.

“Kravitz Raven Queen Diety BirdMan Mc- _fucking_ \- allister,  I am going to find a way to burn you to the ground so _fucking_ badly even your _God_ Momma  won't  be able to resurrect your cheating, goth, _flat_ looking _ass!”_

Lup was ablaze in fire across the room from them and beside the body of her not-brother, Barry standing far back away from the flames with his own wand pointed at the two, seemingly also enraged, though less on-fire and more human-looking. He was less of an imposing figure, too, standing next to Lup who was the literal the physical embodiment of unchecked fury; a burning, crackling skeleton surrounded by bolts of energy as she screamed at them across the room, fireballs coalescing in her bony hands and licking up her skull. Kravitz looked down at Taako, how he held him in his arms, noted how he didn’t actually _look_ like Taako, and blanched.  

Well, it certainly was a compromising position. Taako seemed to realize the same and winced. 

“B-Barry, Barry, the runes -” Kravitz tucked Taako behind him and backed away from Lups approaching hellstorm. There was no appealing to _her_ , but if Barry could understand what had happened here - 

“Lup, you fucking doofus, it's me!” Taako shouted out from behind him but didn’t dare move from Kravitz’s protective body shield. “I leave for like a week and you already don’t recognize your own fucking twin?” 

“ _Bullshit!_ ” She shrieked, and fire engulfed their vision until it was nothing but the three of them in a sweltering tornado of heat and flame. Where was Barry? “How did you think this was  gonna  go down, Kravitz, huh? You bring us here and ask us to trust you and think  it'll  be all _handy dandy_ and give you our blessings on your affair as if I wouldn’t _hesitate_ to bring down the whole fucking _astral plane_ just to _destroy_ you-” 

God, all of the HR paperwork after this was going to be a mess. “Lup, please, listen to me, it really is Taako, there was-” 

Gloriously, just as Lup was readying what would most likely be a near-lethal fireball, they were interrupted by a shocked shout of “Holy fucking _shit_ -” and suddenly Barry – beautiful, glasses-toting barry, his blue jeans a little singed and torn at the ankles – was leaping between them and waving his hands in the air like a crazed mime. “Holy fucking shit! Holy fucking shit – it fucking worked! It worked!” 

“Get out of the way, Barry-” Lups hands were dulled a bit but still alight with flame, but Barry just shook his head, moving to Kravitz and Taako with a rather unsettling look of excitement on his face. 

“Kravitz, it fucking worked, they weren't waiting around for something, the ritual had _already_ happened, and – Taako, holy shit-” He grabbed Taakos hands and pulled them up to his face, turning them over and poking the palms. “How are you – how are you coping like this? What was it like? Do you know what kind of spell he -” 

“You know, Barold,” Taako choked out, “I feel like diffusing my sister is a sitch we should be focused on a _little_ more than how I'm controlling this gigantic meat stick.” 

Though the canopy of flames that had encircled them was now gone, and Lup had allowed flesh to melt over her bones, a dangerous heat was still emitting from her core and flames still licked along her arms as she glanced back at the body of her brother, then to the three of them. Her eyebrows knit in confusion and still barely-contained anger. “Someone mind explaining to me what the _fuck_ is going on before I burn this asshole?” 

“Lup, baby, oh my god, look,” he shoved Taako forward despite his protesting yelp and squished his cheeks together, looking back and forth between them. “The ritual on the walls here, it’s the same soul swapping ritual – that’s why Taakos been acting weird, it wasn’t actually Taako, look, _this_ is Taako! This is your brother! Isn't that wild!” A laugh bubbled from him and Kravitz sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and already feeling a headache beginning to build at the base of his skull.

“Barry, we are going to have some _serious_ talks about your passion for necromancy in the workplace.” 

Barry wilted. “Oh, right, yeah, sorry. But yeah. So. Don’t kill him.” 

“Please don’t kill me.” Taako agreed. 

“Please don’t kill him.” Kravitz said. 

Her gaze kept flicking between Taakos body and the actual Taako, and though she was obviously still prepared to fight, her posture relaxed somewhat as her focused zeroed in on what was to her, supposedly, her brother. “Is it...is it really you?” 

With a small squeeze of Kravitz's hand, Taako stepped forward, a slight hesitant, and reached out in an offering gesture with his hands. After a second of debate she slid hers into his own and locked them together. “Course it's me, numbnuts.” He shrugged. “You want me to do that shitty movie cliché thing where I tell you all my deepest darkest secrets of my past that only you and I would know, huh?” 

There was a crackle of a snort from Lup, and he rolled his eyes. “Fuck yeah, you do. Okay, uh, remember when we lived with that uncle whose name we couldn’t pronounce so we just called him uncle pistachio, cos that’s what he looked like?” 

Kravitz respectfully pretended to not notice the hint of tears lining the edges of her eyes. “Yeah, he was pretty nuts.” 

“Okay listen, fuck you, you’ve just taken like ten years off of my life for that joke.” 

“You're an elf, that’s like, blinking.” 

“Not in this guy.” He huffed. “You crack one more joke like that and poof, i'm gone, I'll be old and withered and gross before you know it.” 

It was...odd, seeing them banter grow back between the two, between a body that had no place in their relationship. This Tiefling didn’t have the right to crack those jokes, to squeeze Lups hands in his own.  

“Okay, okay.” She was smiling now. “One more. Gimmie one more, Faerun time. I'm milkin this for all I have.” 

Taako paused for a minute, thinking with a mumbled noise, before his brow furrowed into a glare and he glanced back to look at Kravitz. “God, fuck, I hate this – dork-wad mcgee's favorite fucking dinner Is just toast and coffee, like, fuck, can you _imagine_ , Lup?  He's been alive for over six hindered years, he's dating this worlds greatest fuckin chef,” he gestured to himself, an out-of-place gesture, “and its fucking _toast_? Just because he’s death-” 

“Doesnt mean he has to be so grim all the time.” She parroted back and within seconds he was wrapped in a tight hug. “God, you’re so fucking _stupid_. How the hell did you get yourself into this mess?” 

“Says you.” He mumbled back, gripping her just as tightly. “You know as well as I do this isn't the weirdest shit ive gotten into.” 

“Yeah, well, it's fucking up there.” She sniffed. 

They held eachother for a few more moments before Lup extended her arm out towards Kravitz, gesturing him into the hug. “Get in here, bird boy, sorry for like, threatening to kill you and all that jazz. No hard feelings?"

He would have told her that it was fine – or, well, that it wasn’t fine, and they'd have to go through a mess of HR mandated group activities to ‘improve intercoworker relationships’ once this was all well and done – and that he didn’t want to intrude on this moment. He would have told her, of course, but the second he opened his mouth he was cut off by a shrill and furious shriek that bounced off of the walls in all the wrong ways. 

“Are you fucking _KIDDING_ me?” 

In their desperate reunions none of them noticed the man inhabiting Taakos body had come to, and he had shuffled to his feet, holding himself in a pained position as he clutched his side in one hand a knife in the other. The look of utter fury was ugly and twisted on his face, something so foreign that if any of them needed further convincing of who was who, here was the evidence.  

“Two _FUCKING_ years! Two _fucking_ years I worked on that plan!” He was limping near the staircase and held the knife in a white-knuckled grip, and Kravitz felt Taakos hand slip reassuringly into his own. “Two fucking years and It all goes to shit just because I don’t fucking know what your boyfriend'sfavorite food is? Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Barry shrugged in a protest. “I mean, technically we figured it out earlier, but-” 

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Tom Arnold.” Fake-Taako hissed. He took a shuddering breath, inching closer to the doorway. 

“You took,” he heaved, “ _everything_ away from me. Why couldn’t you just fucking let me have this?” He raised the knife pointed to be in their direction, a pointless gesture, sad enough that even in this emotionally charged environment Taako barked out a laugh. 

“Oh fuck, what’re you gonna do, stab me? Stab a fucking litch?” 

A shadow of a malicious smile flickered across his face, before he raised the knife further, up, and pressed it against his own neck. All four of them tensed as they realized what he was bartering for. 

“I got nothing left to lose, baby.” He grinned. “And you've got everything.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized halfway though writing this that the finale was never going to fit in just one chapter, so, surprise! more cliffhangers! and one more chapter. then thats it, again. i promise. ( except for maybe an epilogue) 
> 
> Once again i cannot thank you guys enough for the wonderful comments, kudos, and fanart that youve all given, ive had an absolutely horrible past few days but the amount of love you guys give for this continues to astound me. @iamstuckathome12
> 
>  
> 
> [did some more AMAZING fanart ](https://imstuckathome12.tumblr.com/post/183454081885/id-a-waist-up-pencil-sketch-on-lines-paper-of)  
> 
> 
> and i love it so much, i love all of yall so much, god dam.  
> Also entirely blame the weird proposal on @justyoureverydaycasualshipper because they implanted that seed in my head and i couldnt stop fucking thinking about it, fuck 


	9. Saved by the bell

From what Taako could see, there were only three ways out of this situation. 

Either they kill Damian and, by course of order, kill his body, leaving him stuck in a Tieflings form for the rest of this life, or, 

Damian kills himself and, by the same course of order, his body. Or,  

Damian runs, gets caught eventually, and probably still gets his body destroyed along the way.

Or, by some miracle, they manage to subdue him here. He loathed to admit it but the chances for that outcome weren't looking particularly high at the moment. Shit.

“If you think I'd hesitate for even a fraction of a second to do this, you’re _infinitely_ wrong.” Damian, clutching the wound in his side like a lifeline and heaving in pain and labored breathing, pressed the knife sharper against his neck – from where he was standing  Taako  could see a small slice opening up further from the tip of the blade, drawing a few droplets of blood that trickled down and along the steel. Desperation was an ugly look on himself; his hair was matted and plastered to his head, damp from panic and agony-induced sweat that pooled in dark circles under his shirt. He was bleeding from his neck, nose, and had a busted lip, a black eye flowering and beginning to swell.  Taako  didn’t even want to know how many ribs he’d cracked when he had thrown – himself? Damian? - against the wall earlier. All things  considered,  he was _not_ looking forward to swapping bodies.  

“You’re just buying yourself a one-way ticket to the Eternal Stockade, my guy.” Lup scoffed, faked confident demeanor masking the tension in her shoulders. “Like, what, you really think you’ll escape us by dying? Do you even know how this works?” 

Damian didn’t seem phased by her bluff call and arched an eyebrow. “Do you really think I care about dying? About being thrown in celestial prison? I can assure you, Lup, I think you all care more about what happens to this body than I do about my afterlife.” He stumbled, slightly, a whining whimper escaped from his lips, and Taako felt Kravitz flinch beside him. “But sure, feel free to tell me how the Raven Queen will allow you to practice even _more_ necromancy to regrow your brother.” 

“She’ll-” Lup seemed to burst ahead of herself and cut off suddenly, hesitant. She glanced back to Kravitz and while he couldn’t see his face, hyper-focused on the look of malice draped over his own, Taako could feel the shake of his head. The hand slipped in his own tightened it's grip, and Damian’s grin widened. 

“Yeah, didn’t think so.” 

The room was suddenly a few degrees warmer and Lups hands, clenched in shaking fists by her sides, were wreathed in flames. Barry's calming touch on her shoulder seemed to have no effect, and she stepped forward, towards Damian who was now standing directly in front of the staircase still shrouded in shadow. “So, what? You expect us to just fucking let you go? After everything you’ve done?” 

“Isn’t that what the world has allowed you?” He spat back, and her flames flickered, grew in size. “Where’s your repercussions for Phandalin? Greenhold? Moonshae? Armos? The thousands of people who died at the hands of your relics? Wheres their justice, Birds? Where’s _your_ trial?” 

“They saved the world!” Kravitz was clenching Taakos hand so tightly now it was bordering on painful. 

“Not before they destroyed it.” His words were drenched in malice and unfiltered, unabridged hatred, and he was shaking from more than just pain. "The people may have been swayed with your hundred-year sob story of heroics but I know better. I know you for what you really are. You're cowards," he hissed, "you're _cowards_ , and you destroyed my home because you were too afraid to run anymore. But I'm not. I'm not afraid!" Damian was shouting, now, eyes wild and blade juttering in his grip, and he had to take a breath to steady himself before waving his hand as if to move on. “My days of necromancy are behind me. I got what I wanted, more or less. You,” and with a shaky hand he gestured to the four of them, it dropping limply by his side afterwards, “you are going to let me live in peace. I’m going to take what I deserve and give the people, my _family_ , the justice this world never gave them.”  

His eyes locked with Taakos, and his grip on the knife whitened tighter. “I may not have lost a brother, but you still took _everything_ from me, and it's my Goddamned fucking right to take back what you owe.” 

Despite Lups flames, the air was cold, and his words were strikes of icy rage. Taako could feel Lup beginning to shake beside him and with a hand gently reached out to graze her back, she stilled at his touch, froze into a tension unnatural and unhealthy. The shared look of concern he shared with Barry was lost as Damian spoke up again. 

“If that’s all, then, I think I'll be going.” He sneered. One foot was already arched behind him on a step. “If you don’t mind, I have a magic school to-” 

And then he stopped. He frowned, clenched and unclenched his jaw, blinked. “I have - I _have_ a -” 

The knife clattered from his hands and he staggered, hands dropping limply at his sides and features, though still twisted in confusion and anger, softened. “I have- wh-what the fffuck?” 

Damian collapsed to the floor, crumpling in a heap, and behind him stood Angus Mcdonald; clenching his wand and cheeks thick with tears. 

“H-h-h-he-hello si-sirs, I hope thi- I hope my hypot-t-hesis was right-” 

“Ango mc-dango what the _fuck_?” Taako burst forward, stumbling towards the kid who was still standing on the staircase with a heaving chest and shaking hands. “Did you just cast Sleep on me? You little shit! Who taught you that?” 

Behind him Lup was bent over in hysterical laughter, Kravitz was seemingly on the verge of a mental breakdown, and Barry had already left to go examine the ritual. Damian was passed out on the floor, Angus was sobbing into his hands on the stairs, and Taako, bamboozled, stood between the two groups very unsure of who he was meant to go to and very, very unsure of what was going to happen next. At this rate Istus herself could show up with a bottle of Vodka to start pounding down shots and even _that_ wouldn’t be a surprise.  

Taako found himself wishing for that outcome. Vodka shots would be much appreciated. 

“Mr-mr- Luc-Lucas taught me sir I - I'm sorry I followed y-you here-” Angus was still hiccupping his apologies and explanations, furiously wiping at his eyes. “Bu-but I knew something was wrong, and – and I thought that maybe I could-” 

No how much he loathed to admit it, his heart ached for the kid, and with a fake but long-suffering sigh he relaxed his shoulders and inched forward. "Hey. Kid.” Delicately, he stepped over Damian's crumpled form, crouching in front of Angus and ruffling his hair a bit. This wasn't the time for a hug, not while he was still all weepy and snotty, but Taako tried to give him his most comforting smile. A difficult task, considering his smile was fang-filled and smudged with blood from his torn lips. “You did good, okay? You did good.” 

Angus didn’t seem to share the same sentiment about hugging and Taako found himself suddenly in his arms, the boy clinging tightly to him and sobbing into his chest leaving tear and snot-stains in the already torn fabric. Fuck it, wasn’t his shirt anyway. With another sigh – that wasn’t all fake and mostly for the sake of appearance – Taako squeezed him back, let him cling to him for as long as needed before letting go once his breathing had steadied.  

“Listen, hate to break up this lovely little me-focused reunion we got going on here but could we uh, please, get back to like, you know, fixing the whole Freaky Friday bullshit we got going on here?” He turned back to the others and rested his hands on his hips, expectant, while Angus slipped past him into the room still furiously rubbing his eyes. From the other side, where the chairs and runes were, Barry was examining the walls, and shrugged at Taakos yelled question. 

“We just gotta figure out what the spell was, and then I'm pretty sure I can recreate the spell.” He called back, and Taako frowned deeper, tossing one last look back at his body to make sure Damian was down for the count before making his way over. 

“It was astral projection. Like, kiddy necromancy stuff, really, I'm willing to bet even you know that – actually, scratch that, barry if you don’t know this spell I'm going to have to seriously rethink your whole ‘creepily-badass necromancer’ vibe.” 

Barry didn’t take the quip to heart and scoffed instead. “Of course I know astral projection. I eat astral projection for breakfast.” 

“You eat wheat-thins and nut milk, babe. And souls, I guess.” Lup had found her way over and wound her arms around Barry's waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. “So you can pop my brother back into the celestial microwave and switch em? Get me a big ole steaming hot pocket o bro?” 

From behind them, Angus giggled, and Barry shrugged. 

“Yeah, gimmie like, five minutes to finish setting this up. You probably wanna tie them into the chairs.” 

“Kravitz?” Lup eyed him from her husband's shoulder, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Wanna pull your weight? I’m sure you’d be happy to tie my brother up.” 

“Of course he is.” Taako said, at the same time that Kravitz groaned “Please not now, Lup.” 

 

“I gotta say, stud, you're enjoying this _far_ too much to be innocent.” 

As Kravitz adjusted the straps on his wrists he rolled his eyes, careful not to buckle them too tight and running a hesitant touch on his wrist. “The Queen forbid I’m excited to get my boyfriend back.” 

“Fiancée.” Taako corrected, quiet enough that only the two of them could catch it. He was rewarded with a warm smile and a soft, lingering kiss that spoiled him with a hint of tongue. “Easy, boy. Don’t want you getting a taste for someone else, ‘specially when we’re only just learning about a certain kink of yours.” 

Kravitz huffed in adoring annoyance. “Taako I'm not – this really isn't the time -” 

“So this _is_ doing it for you?” His eyebrows shot up and a wicked grin spread across his face, a glint all too recognizable taunting him in a flash of an eye. “My, my,  Mr  Grim Reaper. First it was the tentacles and now the ropes? What _have_ I gotten myself into?” 

There was a groan from behind Taako, one of pain and anguish. “Is this really the last fucking thing I'm gonna be hearing before I'm forced into ghost prison? Can I get a fucking ounce of civility in here?” Damian, who had woken up a few minutes after being tied in himself, tugged at his restraints, a fruitless endeavor that was more in protest of what he was listening to.  

“Asking for dignity? Bold words from a guy who tongue-fucked my man and tried to turn him into fuckin’ forest-park ranger.” Taako jabbed and slammed the back of his head into Damian's, the thunk of horns colliding with skull a dull, painful sound that made both of them wince. “Ah, fuck. Remind me to stop hurting myself?” 

“Implying I enjoyed it.” He muttered from behind him, and Taako gasped in mock-shock that sounded a little too real. 

“What are you, homophobic? Have you even _seen_ Kravitz? You are possibly the only other person alive on this hell-scape of an earth to have had the opportunity to get your  mack  on with the literal, _hot_ embodiment of death and  you're  telling me it did _nothing_ for you?” 

Damian, weirdly enough – as if this exchange wasn’t as horrifyingly strange as it was already and Kravitz itched for it to move on – seemed almost offended and stumbled to defend himself. “He’s not my type, fuck, lay off me would you? Not all of us like cold hands and ice cubes on our fucking dicks!” 

“Oh, you are missing _out_ then, my man.” Taakos voice dropped to a sultry growl and Kravitz couldn’t help the exasperated sigh, making the conversation lull. 

“Taako, how are you this close to literally having your soul torn out of you and still be horny?” 

A sneaking foot prodded his leg and Taako winked. “Numero uno right here, baby.” 

“Okay, first of all, ew.” Lup had her hands tucked into the pockets of her red robe and wandered her way over, glancing between the three of them with barely-masked disgust and amusement. “Second, Barrys all good to go. We ready to do this thing?” 

“Hell yeah, let's roll!” Taako sat up straighter and Kravitz stepped aside, hand reaching out and materializing his scythe. Automatically, his black, feathered work cloak engulfed his shoulders and the flesh melted away exposing bare, white bone, that despite having no nerve endings seemed to fluster at Taakos wink and mouthed _‘love this’._

“I’ll meet you there.” Kravitz said, and sliced a gateway into the air with a crackling of ozone. He stepped through after one last look at the room, at Taako, and disappeared with a stifled pop. 

Soon the room was quiet aside from Barry muttering to himself, reading over the book of notes a few more times with Lup watching and correcting a phrase every now and then. Angus, sat on the floor with his knees to his chest, was reading intently – his eyes were still puffy and red from the tears but his gaze was fixated with curiosity as he palmed through one of the necromancers books. It seemed to be one on divination, thank Gods. The last thing Taako needed was his protégé turning into a miniature Bluejeans. 

The thought of Angus in a spanking new pair of blue jeans made him shudder. 

After a few more moments Barry slapped the book closed and tossed it aside, rubbing his hands together with a few whispered words into his palms. Black energy crackled around his arched up fingers and the chanting, though now much quieter as it was only the two of them, began to fill the room again and make his brain go all fuzzy and hazy. Though he knew this ritual was fine, that it all ended up well and good, he couldn’t help the pang of fear that shot through his chest. It was a justified feeling. After all, last time this happened, he kind of died. 

He supposed the same thing was happening again. At least this time he had the comforting thought of knowing who was waiting on the other side.

As Barry neared closer and closer, the realization that he was about to die occurred to him again, but for a much stupider, much more relaxed reason – he had to go out on some pretty baller last words, right? Sure his last ones were pretty cool, but he didn’t have an appreciative audience last time. Now, he had a reputation to uphold.  

When Barry was just a few seconds far he locked eyes with him, dead in a cold stare, and right before his hands were slammed into their adjoined shoulders Taako winked and whispered, “I see you shiver with antici-” 

And then he died. 

 

Death...was a lot warmer than he remembered. 

More accurately, death felt a lot more like a tight, velvety embrace, more lukewarm in temperature and supportive while his legs buckled beneath him and eyes blinked as they adjusted to the light. Death smelt like vanilla and ozone, too, which was weird. Actually, vanilla, ozone, and _Kravitz_. Which made a lot more sense because it wasn’t so much death itself, that smelt and hugged this way, but the physical embodiment of it.  

“Hey.” He mumbled into Kravitz thick wool cloak, patting him on the back reassuringly as he felt fingers dig tighter into his hips.  

“Hey.” Kravitz mumbled back, and pressed a kiss into the soft skin of his neck. “Just...just making sure you’re okay. Dying isn't fun.” 

“This ain't permanent, bones, I promise.” Taako backed off just a little so they were still held in the embrace but he could reach up to cup his cheeks, shimmering, silvery soul-supported hands translucent and fizzy when pressed against skin. It was a nice moment; soft, warm, and it would have been nice to stay like this forever if there wasn’t a cough from beside them. 

“Do I get a hug, too?”  

“Can’t touch soul forms.” Kravitz said, still clutching to Taako like a lifeline. Damian rolled his eyes and from their shuffled position, Taako could see him holding their soul-strings between his fingers in the same way he had the last time they tried this.  

“Thought we were past lying to each other, Krav, we went through so much together. Did this past week mean nothing to you?” He batted his eyelashes. Kravitz responded with nothing but a low growl, and it earnt him a pair of rolled eyes. “Jeez, okay. Can’t blame me for trying to get a little bit of a laugh before I, you know, go to eternal afterlife prison. And for also trying to lighten the mood before I do this.”

And in a singular motion, he snapped the strings in half. 

It was the same body-wrenching, soul-tearing sensation as before; Taakos vision fizzled out as he clamped down a scream, having expected it this time, though that didn’t make the pain any lesser. His stomach – did his ethereal body even have one? – twisted itself in agony and his eyelids burned, and Taako could do nothing but dry heave as his legs gave out beneath him. For a horrifyingly long moment, Taako thought that maybe this time, he really had died, and that his life would end in a blinding flash of pain-wrecked sobbing.  

But Kravitz’s arms were holding him tight; pressing him into velvet cloak of his uniform and grounding him, pulling him out of the agony-induced haze and soaking up the involuntary tears flooding down his cheeks. His comforting, familiar scent invaded his senses and helped to calm his brain down. _Home_ and _safety_ and _love_ were being broadcasted through and helping to combat his flickering soul, and briefly, Taako wondered if this is what it was like when Fischer sent out his message across the world.  

Behind them, Damian writhed on the ground, but neither Kravitz nor Taako really cared. 

“You okay?” His murmured words were soft in Taakos hair but he couldn’t do anything but nod and give an undignified grunt, feeling as Kravitz stood them up and helped to support his weight on still weak legs. After a few more moments his vision lost its fuzzy tint and he blinked, righting himself, breathing in deep with a shaky sigh and turning to look at their Tiefling friend.  

“You gonna finish this anytime soon, or?” 

“Give me a fucking moment.” Damian snapped, on his hands and knees as he tried to steady his breathing. “Not all of us have celestial boyfriends who can help us through tearing our fucking souls out, dumbass.” 

“And whose fault is that?” He quipped back, earning a glare in return.  

After a few more heaving moments he stood, holding the strings in his hands and delicately moving them to the same fragile position he held them in last time. Rather undignified now, and with much less grace than he had the time before, he flipped the strings around and before Taako could even take a second to say goodbye he smashed his fists together, and the world warped anew. 

It took a second for him to get readjusted. The light here, though only candles, was too bright compared to the comforting darkness of the astral plane, and it burned his eyes that he squeezed shut. He focused instead on the things that he could feel and the things he could notice; there was a lightness to his body now, somehow, and when he cocked his head from side to side there was no longer a weight balanced on either side of his skull. His tongue ran hesitantly across his teeth and he delighted in the feeling of smooth collagen rather than sharp ends – his hands, clenching the wood beneath him, were no longer clawed, and a laugh bubbled up and escaped warbled and tear-mangled. 

"- _pation_."

Taako was _back_ , baby. 

There was a gentle hand slapping his cheek and he blinked open, seeing Lup and Barry looming over him through his watery vision with concerned looks.  

“Alright, first point of order, whats my favorite moving picture?” She asked. Taako coughed out a snicker, and after swallowing a few times to ease his sore throat closed his eyes and leant his head against the back of the chair. 

“Pretty woman, but you hate how gross the love interest is and always complain about him every time you watch it. I have no idea why you like that dumb movie so much.” 

Fingers were immediately unbuckling his leather restraints, and he let them with relative ease, slipping in and out of consciousness as comforting soft words lulled his headache into a dull _thrumn_. As it turns out, getting your soul ripped from your body twice isn't exactly good self-care. He wasn’t sure how long it was when he finally felt cool, string-worn hands cupping his cheeks, and he nuzzled into the touch - letting others help him stand and stumble into a hug that was far too warm to be his beaus. 

“Dumbass.” Lup muttered into his ear and the searing grip suddenly made more sense, and he clung back to her tightly, warming his face in her neck. “Don’t you _ever_ do something stupid like that ever again.” 

And Taako paused. Thought for a second. Started to laugh. 

“Hey, Barry,” he said between snorts, feeling Kravitz already beginning to back away from the scene. “Wanna be my best man?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, beginning to write this: ok so its the finale chapter, high stakes game, better keep it serious  
> me twenty minutes in: haha bone  
> Also i would Die for Damian and you can tear my Tiefling boy from my cold, dead hands
> 
> Its over! its finished! no more cliffhangers i swear! Thank you all so much for your continued support over this, it meant an incredible amount and it helped me push these pieces out far easier than i ever could have imagined. 
> 
> While writing this chapter i realized halfway though that it could have ended very, very differently, and lead the fic on another path that would have lead to a few more chapters, but...i figured you guys deserved an ending right now. Though i might, possibly, set this up as a series and just start a new piece branching off where it could have gone. Alternate universes and all that. To be continued, maybe...?  
> Also now by fuck do i want a pretty woman Taakitz AU. has someone written that? Do i have to write that? I have so many more pieces i wanna do especially for amnesty ( how bout that new ep yall HUH ) but uh. might put that. on the backburner.  
> Thank you! And hit me up if you do any more fanart and ill chuck you in here !!!! i love all of your art yall own my wholeass HEART


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